Surfing the web again? You’ve checked your Facebook, read all the articles and comments on your favorite news sites, discovered which celebrity baby made a fashion faux pas this week, and wandered out of the jobs section on Craigslist to see if anyone you know posted a personal ad. All the while you are consistently checking your email to see if there are any replies to the seemingly millions of resume’s you’ve sent out. Now you’re watching the latest funny video a friend sent you before forwarding another dancing baby into cyber stardom.
It’s a routine and it’s tough to break if you don’t know what to do with spare time while job hunting. However, there is something to fill your online downtime that can entertain your brain and increase your marketability on the job hunt, tutorials. Companies like Adobe have a resource of video tutorials to instruct and inspire in the use of their products. If you want to brush up on C++ language skills you can find step by step instructions with a simple search.
By adding “tutorial” to any topic in your search engine you can learn anything from puppet making to particle physics. Video tutorials especially are a great time killer and increase your general knowledge on certain subjects but unless you put the projects into practice and include them in your portfolio it’s not something you’ll add to your resume.
If you want to take your online time a little farther and don’t mind shelling out a small fee for a resume builder, sites like Lynda.com and Webucator offer certified classes led by instructors that may take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. If you have the opportunity you can even get your degree online.
Schools like ECPI offer an accelerated course schedule to earn your Bachelor’s Degree in less than 3 years and Full Sail University has tech courses available for everything from Graduate Certificates to Master’s Degrees. These require quite a bit more time and money so you have to determine the return on the investment.
In the meantime, the next time you’re about to watch another video of a man getting hit in the groin, click over to eHow instead and spend a couple of free minutes learning to do just about anything, even how to make your own mouthwash.
By Heather Fairchild - Heather is a multimedia developer, business owner, work-from-home-mom.
Become a member to take advantage of more features, like commenting and voting.
Register or sign in today!