Your everyday professional skills, sometimes called soft skills, are essential to building a great reputation at work. Whether you’re a recent grad starting your first job or a seasoned professional eyeing a promotion, it’s no longer enough to simply do your work and do it well. To set yourself apart, you need to master the communication skills that aren’t always easy to convey in a resume—the ones employers are looking for in new hires.
Prove you have these soft skills with digital badges. Short online courses and credentials available through the University Learning Store are the fast and affordable way to develop or validate the abilities employers want, like writing skills and problem solving. With badges, you can take charge of your professional development from the comfort of your home—on your own time.
Stellar Communication
Communication is consistently among employers’ top must-haves, and yet it’s an area in which new and veteran employees alike sometimes fall short. Why not put yourself ahead of the pack by shoring up your writing skills? Online digital badges make it easy to get a quick refresher on essentials like writing effective emails. You can also strengthen important skills in a core focus area, such as business communications. Badges offer proof of the expertise you already have, so you can leverage them to earn greater responsibility or compete for a promotion.
Whatever your career planning goals, communication is a power skill you want to have in your repertoire, and badges are a fast and affordable way to make it happen.
A View of the Big Picture
As the lines between specialties continue to blur, employers are looking for people who can think about a product or a service from start to finish. An executive who can work across disciplines is an asset—and one that employers are willing to pay for. If cross-functional collaboration is nothing new to you, validate your existing experience with digital badges. A badge like Mapping the Business Supply Chain can prove to your employer that you have the big-picture view of how to boost your organization’s bottom line. Most badges can be completed in days or a few weeks, so you can expand your knowledge on your own time without impacting your daily responsibilities.
Exceeding Management Expectations
Managers are often pressed for time, which means they value people who can get results without close supervision. Entrepreneurial skills like creativity, problem solving and leadership are in high demand, but they are sometimes difficult to quantify. Prove to your employer you are ready to take the reins by earning digital badges. Thinking Like an Entrepreneur is a badge that can help you hone desirable business skills and apply them in the workplace (even if you aren’t an entrepreneur). Badges can also help you sharpen power skills like creating presentations and leading meetings. Your badges will help your manager feel confident you can work independently without sacrificing performance, which will drive positive results for you, your manager and your organization.
An Eye for the Aesthetic
The old adage says never judge a book by its cover, but in today’s visual world, a well-designed cover could make all the difference. Whether you are creating a presentation or writing a report, visuals tell the story, and they can make or break your delivery. So how can you develop an eye for the aesthetic without wasting time on training that’s too far outside your specialty? Focus on design skills relevant to the workplace with digital badges. Short online classes like Business Presentations: The Persuasive Speaker and the soon-to-launch app, Incorporating Data and Visualizations in Presentations, can help you learn practical skills like how to design visually appealing slides and how to use charts to demonstrate trends. Badges are designed specifically for busy professionals like you, so you’ll learn only the tips and tricks you need to make an impact—and you can do it on your own time.
Cultural Competence
Communication technology is making the world smaller. Through online tools like webinars and video conferences, professionals can easily connect to industry leaders across the globe. But etiquette in the global workplace is nuanced, and you need to be culturally aware to get ahead. So how can you quickly tackle a complex skill like cultural competence? Digital badges. A short online class like Business Meeting Etiquette can show you how to make the right impression in a teleconference. You can also elevate an essential power skill, such as writing emails, by earning a badge for Emails That Work: Writing for the Digital Age. Badges are fast—most can be completed in days or a few weeks—so you can quickly demonstrate your expertise in an important meeting, or boost your cultural competence before an upcoming conference.
Do you have the key soft skills employers are looking for? Start earning badges to prove it and get ahead. Subscribe for the latest information about the current courses available through the University Learning Store.