Upskilling & additional qualifications

One great way to stand out from the crowd is to study additional courses - ideally ones that align with your career ambitions. Fortunately, there are loads of free online courses you can complete - some take just a few hours and will look amazing on your degree apprenticeship applications, CV and LinkedIn profile.

Key Success Factors:

Study free online courses that directly link with your chosen career pathway.
If one of your target companies offers online courses, even better - sign up immediately!
After you complete each course, add them to your CV and LinkedIn profile.
Use your Extended Project Qualification as additional leverage.

FutureLearn offers thousands of online courses from top universities and specialist organisations. They have free and paid-for subscription models.

Coursera offers a wide range of courses from 350+ highly-respected universities and companies.

OpenLearn (from The Open University) offers a wide range of free courses. You can earn digital badges and "Statements of Participation".

LinkedIn Learning has an extensive digital library of expert-led courses and short videos. They offer a free one-month trial.

The Santander Open Academy offers over 1,000 free courses, designed to develop the professional skills demanded in the workplace.

Artificial Intelligence

Hone your AI skills with a range of free courses created by the likes of Microsoft, Salesforce, Google, Amazon and IBM.

Technology, IT and marketing

There are various highly-regarded courses offered by some of the big tech companies, such as the ones listed below. Note: There’s a considerable time commitment when studying some of these courses.

Google Career Certificate offers a range of free courses including cybersecurity, Data Analytics, UX Design, IT Automation with Python, and Digital Marketing & E-commerce.

Meta (the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp) offers a digital marketing course: Meta Blueprint.

Cisco Systems develops, manufactures and sells networking hardware, software and telecommunications equipment. Their free CCNA courses include: Networking fundamentals, IP Services, Security fundamentals and Automation.

Extended Project Qualification (EPQ)

Due to the flexibility of this qualification, you can choose a topic / artefact that will make you far more desirable to employees. To find out how, click here.

Research suggests that employees with great digital skills (e.g. spreadsheets) earn a premium. Manipulating data is also a common method of selecting candidates (and will be required in most professional workplace settings). Improve your Excel skills for free by studying with Udemy.

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