Upskilling Courses

MartinAnt

Hi, just wondering about your thoughts on the quality of the various sites out there offering courses, mostly free, some you pay for assessments, etc.

Where an official postgrad/masters, isn’t really feasible at the moment, when looking to upskill myself in my own time, how do these sites for example (or any others you can suggest) stack up? Are they a good learning basis, are some more respected than others, etc.

Coursera
Udacity
Udemy
PluralSight
Etc

Particularly interested in people that would be interviewing candidates for roles. When quizzed on a particular language or skill, and these sites are mentioned, what is the feeling on them? Or does it matter once you can show you have the understanding the employer is looking for?

Thanks,
MartinAnt

srsly78

Just need to demonstrate competence, noone cares about certs. Either have professional experience or a practical demo.

14ned

srsly78 wrote: »

Just need to demonstrate competence, noone cares about certs. Either have professional experience or a practical demo.

I'd slightly reword this to "need to prove you'll add value to an employer". You can be competent at some skill X, but an employer may see no possible value added from that competency.

Niall

D Hayes

In my current workplace (multinational), each member of our group is given a Pluralsight subscription. With the caveat that lack of use means you lose it.

It would do your interview prospects no harm if you mentioned you had a subscription to it - shows you're playing an active role in career development etc.

I think you can get free subscriptions via Bizspark or similar Microsoft initiatives.

MartinAnt

That's a great initiative for an employer to give the subscription once it's being used.
Yeah I think I can get 3 months free access via the Microsoft route.
I suppose my question really is, in lieu of not having any professional experience, as I'll be learning these skills outside the workplace, when asked to explain/demonstrate what I know, does it matter whether it came from a masters or a free online course. Your answers suggest not really.