The ways of yesterday are the ways of today. I’m enrolled in the Jobs Now 3 program which isn’t like the original Jobs Now program where you could get a job and your employer would be repaid your salary. Now it’s only a $5000 endowment to the person who hires you, but it’s still not bad. There is a catch now though. You have to go through the Career Development Center where they try and find you a job.
This works fine if you’ve just turned 18 and don’t have a college degree, but for someone like me who has a Bachelor’s degree and has worked in the graphic design area for over 20 years and done web development for a good 10+ years you aren’t going to find anything. They do offer training, but nothing for me because I already have a college degree. Then I remembered something that few people know about or pay attention to…iTunes U.
iTunes U is a part of iTunes where colleges offer courses online. The colleges could be Stanford, Harvard, MIT, etc. They’re good courses and the best part is they are free. You won’t get a diploma from them, but if you’re someone like me who wants to learn Objective-C or Drupal, you don’t really need a diploma. You just need to learn it, then put it to use. For those of you out there like me who are skilled workers looking for a job [techie day labors] This is were you need to look. The classes cover the full range and aren’t just for techie types, but might give you an upper hand if you’ve been unemployed for awhile and want to brush up on your skills.
At the very least it’s free and gives you a chance to learn something new. At the worst, read the last sentence again. The ways of yesterday are not the ways of today and you have to use the new tools that are out there to get a leg up on the competition.