Learning new skills is always useful to advance your career and personal goals, after all, the more you know about your field, the better you’ll stand out from the crowd and look more attractive to potential employers.
Let’s talk about the famous online community platform Linkedin. The was the most visited platform in 2022 when it comes to job and talent recruitment, but is LinkedIn learning worth it? Let’s find out.
The introduction of online learning platforms has made it much easier to learn new skills, whereas back in the day your only choices were to either go to university, which is extremely expensive or read books, which often isn’t practical enough.
Now that online courses are all over the internet, it’s made it much easier to find the right skills and practice them in order to get ahead. The only issue is because there are so many courses, which one is right for you?
Today we’ll be reviewing LinkedIn Learning, which is a new initiative started by LinkedIn, in partnership with the e-learning platform Lynda. We’ll outline all you need to know and whether it’s worth it.
What Is LinkedIn Learning?
LinkedIn is an immensely popular social networking site that allows professionals to share, create and learn, chances are you’ve already heard of it before.
Recently, LinkedIn have decided to put more of a focus on education, they’ve acquired the e-learning platform Lynda and started offering professional courses through LinkedIn Learning.
No matter what your occupation is, there’s a big chance that you’ll get something out of using LinkedIn Learning.
Beginning With LinkedIn Learning
Start off by creating an account with LinkedIn, you can do this here. Then make your way over to the LinkedIn Learning page, and you’ll be asked whether you want to start a free trial, or to buy it for your team.
Once you’ve registered with LinkedIn Learning (see also ‘How To Cancel LinkedIn Learning‘), you’ll be asked to pick some skills that are of interest to you. Based on your skills selection, the platform will offer you some recommendations on specific courses.
This is not the only way to discover courses, there are 3 other ways:
- According to Your Field
- Trending
- Top Liked
If you already have an idea about what you’d like to learn, you can pick courses solely on that. For example, if you pick Microsoft Office, you’ll get hundreds of different courses based on that topic.
Three Learning Directions
LinkedIn Learning offers three different ways to learn, which is vastly different to many online education websites:
- By Subject – If you’re wanting to gain experience with specific skills, this is definitely the best way to go. You can pick a topic and just pick courses from there.
- Learning Paths – This is a unique feature that makes LinkedIn Learning so good. If you want to transition into a new career path, there are Learning Paths that can help you do that. You can simply pick your path and get a structured learning experience.
- Software – Whatever your occupation is, there’s a good chance that you’ll need to know your way around several types of software.
How Much Does LinkedIn Learning Cost?
One of the biggest things when deciding what online learning platform to use is the cost. You want a good learning experience, without having to pay a college tuition.
Thankfully, LinkedIn Learning won’t set you back that much. It costs just $29.99 per month, which is a relatively small investment compared to the job that it’ll help you get.
Since there’s a free trial currently, you can try it out for free for the first month and simply cancel if you don’t like it. But if you do like it, you can carry on the subscription and start paying to keep using the courses.
Can LinkedIn Learning Get You A Job?
Gaining skills and basic knowledge, especially in a field you’re not familiar with is absolutely vital.
If you’ve got no experience with the job you’re wanting to transition to, LinkedIn Learning can help you to gain skills related to that field and is a great way to begin your journey.
Plus, employers will prefer to see someone who is proactive and spends their free time improving themselves, rather than someone who spends their free time doing nothing.
Show Off Your New Skills On Your Resume
Doing all the courses on LinkedIn Learning is all well and good, but you need to let potential employers know about it. One of the easiest ways to do this is to put it in your resume.
If you’ve done skills or courses related to the field you’re looking for, you can mention your new certification or qualification under the “Skills” section.
If you’ve completed an entire learning path, you can put that in the “Education” section. Yes, it really counts as education!
Talks About The Courses You’ve Completed In Your Interview
As well as including the courses and skills you’ve learned through LinkedIn Learning (see also ‘How Much Is LinkedIn Learning?‘) in your resume, you can also talk about them in an interview.
Make sure to go into detail about what you’ve done, don’t just say “Oh, I’ve recently completed some online courses” as that gives the employer no extra information about what these courses relate to. What was the course?
What knowledge and skills did you gain from it? And how will this allow you to help the employer more in their job?
Remember, going into detail about what you’ve done is better than giving them the basics, how else will they know that you’ve got the right skills and knowledge to make you better than any of the other candidates?
Is It Worth It?
In our opinion, yes it’s definitely worth it.
There are no real drawbacks to this platform, if you’re looking to broaden your knowledge with skills and experience related to your field, then it’s a great thing to have on your resume.
The skills that you’ll develop will be invaluable for not only your personal development, but also in your search for a job.
As long as you do a bit of research related to the course you want to take and the instructors, there’s no reason why LinkedIn Learning (see also ‘Are LinkedIn Certifications Worth It?‘) won’t give you essential skills and knowledge.
