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Wednesday 13 June 2018

Career Webinars & Podcasts

A colleague posted a question on the CDANZ LinkedIn group recently, asking for career development podcast ideas. That got me thinking!

Our CDANZ branch as used the Symposium keynote speaker videos each year to watch and discuss. I think they have been useful - and enjoyed - by those members who didn't get to attend. Some of the sessions too are recorded. They are all worth a look. Past CDANZ presentations can be found here.

I attended the first CDANZ webinar which explored Holden's process in shutting down their Australian manufacturing operation, which was very interesting. I have also done a couple of CERIC webinars (here) and US NCDA ones (here). Just be aware that the timing can be quite rough, depending on the North American coast the webinar is based on (I have attended a few webinars which started at 4am NZT). CERIC also have some Vimeo clips that you can watch (here).

There are some very good quality MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) including short and medium courses from edX (MIT/Harvard), Coursera (Case Western), FutureLearn (UK's Open University), Udemy (privately owned by teachers Eren Bali, Oktay Caglar and Gagan Biyani) and Lynda (owned by Microsoft and often quite expensive - unless your employer has an account you can tap into). Unfortunately there are very few courses available specifically on career development.

The first three platforms - edX, Coursera and FutureLearn - are all university-driven, and have largely free courses if you wish to simply audit the materials. You are usually limited in some way with time, or locked out of some of the quizzes and/or some of the answers. If you want certification these courses are likely to cost between NZD$50-$100. Not significant costs, and in general I have found them to be of good quality.

It is also worth mentioning that all three of these platforms have multiple partners around the world. For example the University of Auckland publishes their short online courses via FutureLearn, while Australia National University uses edX.

Udemy are mostly paid courses, ranging between NZD$12-$500, from a range of providers. I have completed a number of these, including a Richard Bolles Parachute course.

Additionally, once you have signed up with Udemy, you will be offered discounted courses which can mean significant savings. I completed many courses by having a wishlist and then waiting for sales. There is currently a coaching course available here: I have no idea as to the quality, but it could be good if you are looking for new material (and if you sign up and find the course material is bad, you can simply ask for a refund).

While a short online course is not going to solve the problems of the world, they have their place to sharpen up our practices and to introduce us to new material. Even bad courses can provide self-development by our synthesis of a rebuttal to a poorly informed or outdated perspective.

However, when it comes to podcasts, there are very few New Zealand resources. Radio NZ have some excellent podcasts, and it is worth keeping an eye out for discussions and interviews as they are broadcast (a couple of interesting links are provided in the resource list below). Internationally, PlayerFM have a category of Career Counselling podcasts available here.

If any of you come across any other online resources, I would be MOST interested to hear!


Sam

A list of online resources:

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