Job Training, Cheap
November 7th 2010 20:37
This is not a money back offer because it’s free. You paid nothing for it. Nevertheless, it will be easy to give you a great deal more value than that con man who charged you $75 a head to be ripped off. I am going to tell you how to train for your next job for free, or at least inexpensively.
The most obvious way to get free employment education and training is to start with the computer you are sitting at right now. Find the start button on your lower left hand side and begin searching for what kind of software is on your computer. By the way, if at anytime you don’t understand my directions or a term that I use, Google it. For instance type “start button” or ” how to find software on my PC” in to Google and search on that. When Google starts suggesting alternate searches for you, pick one that look like what you want or stick with your original verbiage. In the beginning of your training get Google happy, get Googley eyes. Google everything . If it helps, make notes on 3×5 cards to help you remember the new terms you are learning.
When searching your computer for software be on the look out for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. There may be other programs but we need you to land a job pretty quickly. Some of the other programs you might discover either take longer to learn or are less in demand than Word and Excel.
Open up either word or Excel. Once the program is open push the F1 or help key. When the help opens up type in “tutorial” or “reference guide”, search, and then use the links to select tutorials or quick reference guides. If there is any thing in particular you want or need to know, use help and/or Google to search for it. If you want to get ahead of the competition, read and work through every free tutorial you can. Know how to merge mail, pivot and do macros. What you want to be able to do is to perform all the actions on the tutorial with no reference notes or help of any kind. That way if an employer tests you, you can do whatever is required with the software.
If you need more training then go to Google and type in the phrase “Excel Tutorial” or “free Microsoft Word Training.” Go to the websites that offer the information and then go through the tutorials or training. Be sure that the computer you are using is set for safe searching and has its anti virus and anti adware software going. That way dangerous sites are less likely to show up.
If you are a technically minded person who really wants to get into the programming aspects of Excel or word, try using sites like msdn.microsoft.com or support.microsoft.com or even www.microsoft.com. The first two sites are for techies only. If you are not a techie that you may find the code and even on very rare occasions the mathematics there about as scary as having Zombies in your living so don’t go there unless you must. For instance, if your office deploys some software to a remote location and it worked at your office but not in the hinterlands and for some God awful reason they want you to fix it, now you know where to start looking for answers.
So there was your completely free training. Now you might also get completely free training from taking tutorials on your friend’s computer or from computers at the public library. For those who have not been in a public library for a while, they are not entirely useless, sometimes they have good software on their computers and good training materials on their shelves. Head down there today and take a look.
For cheap training start at your local community colleges and adult education and adult learning centers. For most people, the cheap training you can get in these places are as much as you should ever have to do. Often things like books and parking fees will be more expensive than the classes. Once you get access to their computers and computer labs, you could conceivably come in on a weekend, take the entire course including tests in a single day and then apply for jobs with what you learned on Monday. It all depends on how hard you are willing to work.
If all else fails, find the lowest level institution of higher learning available. Sign up for courses in Word, Excel, Adobe Photoshop, or anything else that looks good to you. A junior or community college would be best because they can be cheap and fast. If you have run out of every other opportunity, try full-fledged colleges or universities. You might also try some online institutions or some technical training institutes but be very, very wary of scams and fake schools. If the “school” has been in business for less than two years walk away. If they are not accredited by your state, running screaming in the opposite direction.
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The Secret to Surviving a Jobless Recovery
The secret is to get into management. What do managers know really? They don’t have to be rocket scientists and if the employees and line supervisors are really good at their jobs then a manger doesn’t even have to have detailed knowledge of the process or business he is managing. But is that the only reason why should to look into management as a career? Actually, no. One of the main reasons to consider management is, as a famous bank robber once observed, it’s where the money is.
To demonstrate that managers can make big bucks try the following experiment. For many in the United States, $100,000 a year would be a very good rate of pay indeed. Try looking for jobs that make four times that much in a job search engine. The search engine called Indeed at www.indeed.com allows one to search many if not all the underlying job search engines on the internet in one place. Put $400,000 in the search box and push Find Jobs button. Skip the jobs that require a doctor’s degree. Notice that a lot of the remaining jobs have words like “Manager” or “Supervisor” in the title. In fact jobs at the $300,000 and $200,000 levels often have words like “Director” or “Supervisor” in the title.
Another reason to try the manager career path can be seen by clearing the search box and typing the word “manager”. Then push the Find Jobs button. Notice that over half a million manager jobs are listed if no filters as to date, time and location are used. So almost anyone can find a suitable job in management. On the left hand side of the Indeed search page there is a heading that says Location. Clicking on it reveals there are management jobs in every major city in America.
For those with no management experience or not much experience there is still hope. Many if not most managers started out at low pay with little recognition. In order to climb the corporate ladder they had to be willing to put the time in and to buy into whatever bill of goods the corporation was selling. To make the management track work most people are going to need to be willing to start out as a manger in training or and assistant manager at a salary as low as $20,000. At that stage the main job is to observe other mangers and develop a management style. And while it can be argued that managers don’t know much they still have to look like they do. The would be manager must take all the company courses on management and business and he must get at least an Associate Degree on his own time. Anyone who wants to be CEO one day then must eventually get an MBA degree as well, but entry level mangers in training often just need to be a warm body willing to learn.
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