Embracing lifelong learning: 5 ways online education can benefit you and your career

Embracing lifelong learning: 5 ways online education can benefit you and your career
Jolene Rutherford

Not a few decades ago, the corporate world was a much different place. People would join a company after college, and use their degree and their knowledge to hold down a decent job until they’re ready for something better, or until they’re ready to enter retirement. Nowadays, though, things have completely changed, and the modern employee has transitioned from a mere worker to a growth-oriented individual with a purpose and numerous aspirations achieved through business training and personal development. In a nutshell, the modern employee wants and needs to continue learning and obtaining knowledge.

The reasons for this are numerous, ranging from the simple fact that employers need team members who can bring more value to the company over time, to the fact that millennials and Gen Z-ers are not interested in doing the same thing for the rest of their lives. This is why companies emphasize corporate training nowadays, and why you should develop a passion for lifelong education. Let’s take a look at the five ways you set the stage for success through online learning.

1. Build a personal brand

The modern job market is competitive, to say the least, and while talented individuals are entering the playing field every day, there is no denying that the ones who have a powerful personal brand will come out on top. The reason behind this is quite simple: your personal brand can tell a lot about you, your skills and expertise, your loyalty and trustworthiness, and more. This tells the employers that you are the prime pick for a job opening at their company, and you can bet that they will fight to get you on their team.

Now, there are numerous ways you can build up your brand names, one of which is to continue acquiring new skills and experience in your field. Ideally, this should entail work experience, formal education, and self-development through online learning and certifications from recognized brands and online institutions. The more experience you have under your belt, the more recognizable, trustworthy, and authoritative your personal brand will be – which will allow you to pick and choose the position that suits your goals and aspirations.

2. Bring more value to your company

While there is nothing wrong with working a stable job for a few years, after a while it will not only become a little bull and repetitive, but you will also find yourself needing and wanting more of your career and your life as a whole. This is a natural state of mind and a normal milestone in any employee’s career, but instead of pushing those feelings aside, you need to consider how online learning can take your career forward.

One of the best ways to push yourself to achieve more is to apply for an employee development program at your company in order to acquire new skills, after which you will be able to apply for a new position or a raise. If your company doesn’t have such a program, no problem, be sure to use this drive to learn new things through certified online courses in order to open new doors for your career. 

3. Specialize in a new career path

Nowadays, it’s easier than ever before to make a 180-degree turn and embark on a completely new career path. Because you don’t need a formal college degree anymore to apply for positions in many industries, such as IT, you can take matters into your own hands and apply for online courses that will get you certified and allow you to kick-start a new career quickly.

Take AWS as a prime example of agile training and development in the online world, as you can apply for comprehensive AWS training courses in almost any country to become a developer, an architect, or even an operations manager on Amazon Web Services and start a prospective career in the IT sector. Whatever industry you might be interested in, though, it’s important to find authorized course providers to ensure the legitimacy of your training and the validity of your degree. 

4. Maintain productivity while learning new skills

Whether you are learning new skills on your own or through a corporate training program, it’s important to maintain personal productivity throughout the course. After all, just because you’re learning something new doesn’t mean that your career should take a break, or that your productivity at work should suffer. 

Quite the contrary, learning should inspire you to become more productive and to utilize that knowledge to improve your work and your processes at the office. To achieve this, you need to own your personal development, participate actively in the training program, and make it an integral part of your daily routine. 

5. Learn in a fun and engaging way

Last but not least, you can’t expect to achieve the results you want if you don’t consider learning to be fun, or particularly engaging. That’s why companies are increasingly relying on customizable games and gamification in general to create more engaging training programs for their employees that are stress-free and help with knowledge retention. Be sure to learn through games or other engaging content to make that knowledge stick, and you will have no problem acquiring new skills with ease.

Wrapping up

In the modern business world, an employee who is willing to grow and achieve more is destined for great things. Be sure to adopt the concept of lifelong learning and use these tips to push your career forward and open lucrative doors on your way to long-term success.

Jolene is a marketing specialist, interested in digital marketing and new technology trends.

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Smith says:

Nice information for a new blogger…it is really helpful