Free Certifications to Add to Your Resume
Simply Hired Staff
Many positions require advanced education, degrees or courses to progress in a field or even land your first job. Every field values its own unique certifications, but these certifications often come with hefty price tags and long ramp-up times.
Fortunately, the internet is making it a lot easier to educate yourself at home and on the cheap. Here are five options for free training and certifications that can help you add distinctive digital skills to your resume without investing time and money in a degree or certification program:
Google Analytics Online Courses
Google is a major player on the internet. Is it any surprise the company also offers free online analytics courses? Individuals who want to better understand digital analytics, the Google Analytics platform, ecommerce analytics or mobile app analytics, can head to the Analytics Academy to learn and test their knowledge.
While these skills will be particularly valuable for marketers, writers and digital strategists, understanding Google Analytics would make professionals in any position stand out.
Basic Digital Marketing Skills
In today’s digital economy, any employee may be asked to contribute to a marketing campaign or provide a quote about ongoing work for marketing purposes. To be a well-rounded candidate, just about everyone would be well-served by having some awareness of social media, content marketing and digital marketing.
Introduce yourself to digital marketing concepts (and add an attractive certification to your resume) by going through HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Certification. This certification covers the fundamentals of SEO, blogging, landing pages, lead nurturing and conversion analysis. Even if you aren’t in a marketing position, this will give you an added edge over candidates within your field who aren’t familiar with basic marketing concepts.
Free Courses and Education
There is also a larger category of free online education resources that are expanding every year.
Coursera provides access to real college courses from top universities such as Johns Hopkins University, University of Michigan, Yale and Stanford. The free courses do not come with a degree, but you can complete certain courses in sets to create a free or low cost specialization, such as Big Data or Business Foundations.
Udemy is an online marketplace for individual courses. By searching for free courses, you can access training on such topics as accounting, Android development, Adobe Illustrator and more.
Code Academy is an online training hub for technical topics. You can take free courses on topics like SQL, website development and basic programming to develop your skills in this area.
You can also peruse OpenCulture’s comprehensive list of certificate-offering courses from a mix of platforms such as Coursera, FutureLearn and individual universities.
Free courses and certifications may not carry the weight of high-level certifications or official degrees, but they are a great way to explore new skills and show that you’re invested in your own personal and professional development. Check out these five certification and education opportunities to see if they could help you round out your skills for your current or prospective job.
