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Crafting an Attention-Grabbing Resume: Best Practices

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Crafting an Attention-Grabbing Resume: Best Practices

If you’ve ever wished for a few minutes in the elevator with your idol, an investor, a thought leader, the boss, or the CEO at the company you dream of working for to pitch your idea or yourself? Well, every time you sent out your resume, you are doing just that. Your resume is your elevator pitch, on paper, to the person who can help change the course of your career. Unfortunately, many people don’t know how to craft an eye-catching resume that will land them a callback for an interview. We’re here to help. Below, we’re giving you the tips and best practices for crafting an attention-grabbing resume.

What is a resume?

Your resume is a formal document that prospective applicants use to give an overview of your qualifications, work experiences, skills, notable accomplishments, and goals for a position. The purpose of the resume is to show potential employers what makes you the best candidate to assume the position advertised. At a basic level, your resume contains:

  • Contact information
  • Introduction
  • Educational history
  • Work experience
  • Skills

Types of resumes

There are different resume formats. They each serve a specific purpose and emphasize areas of focus that the company will be looking for. Certain organisations and job roles may need you to submit a particular type of resume that highlights what the company is looking for. These are:

  1. Chronological resume: this type of resume leads with an introduction and then gives an overview of your working history, starting with your most recently held post. This is best if you have different experience levels.
  2. Functional resume: a functional resume focuses more on your skills and abilities instead of showing your career growth. It’s ideal for those who have gaps in their career or those looking for a career change and thus has a short work experience section and a larger portion dedicated to your skills.
  3. Combination resume: as the name suggests, this resume combines aspects of the chronological and functional resume. The combination resume is a fine balance of your work history and skills. This type of resume is ideal for individuals with extensive work experience and a high calibre of skills.
  4. Targeted resume: this resume is for those applying for a specific position and wants to highlight the key skills and experience related to the advertised position. Each section of the resume emphasizes the qualifications and includes the skills, traits, and responsibilities you have and the requirements for the job post.

Best practices for crafting a resume

You can easily be tempted to include all your skills, experiences, and qualifications on your resume. What you should do is avoid going overboard. Here are the best practices for crafting that attention-grabbing resume.

  1.     Keep it simple

The first and probably most important rule of crafting a resume is to keep it short and simple. The way to do this is to succinctly detail the relevant information for the job you’re applying for. You don’t have to include every detail of your job history. Too much information and your resume become too busy and difficult to draw out relevant information. Simple. Succinct.

  1.     Give a career snapshot

Career experts now suggest that instead of adding a statement at the top of your resume, instead give a summary, a “career snapshot”. A career snapshot is your personal brand statement. It answers the question, “Describe your work experience in a single sentence”. You share the value you bring, your skills, and your qualifications. Below this, add a few bullet points to highlight your experience but make sure what you include is relevant to the position you’re applying for.

  1.     Make it readable

Employers see hundreds of resumes. Choose an original template that will make your resume stand out from the others and clearly identifies your qualifications. If you’re applying for a job in tech or graphic design, find a template that best demonstrates these skills and plays to your assets. You need to structure your resume in a way that the information has a nice flow and your strongest points and qualities shine through here.

 Alison has a fantastic Resume Builder tool that can help you build the perfect resume tailored to each job application and position you’re vying for.

  1.     Use your words wisely

You have a short time to impress the reader so make sure you choose keywords in your resume that will get past the screener like an applicant tracking system (ATS). Include words used in the job post that apply to you and add these to your resume.

Here, you want to use active words like accelerated, achieved, improved, drove, and leveraged that show the work you have done. They read much better than passive words. Also try not to repeat the active words you use so that whoever your resume lands in front of, doesn’t get bored. Be sure you get the message across, your suitability for the position, as effectively as possible.

  1.     Highlight your success

Let your resume highlight your past successes for your team and organisation. You want to put your best foot forward showing what you have done and what you can do for them. Don’t skim over the challenges you experienced, but speak specifically about the results you achieved, how you overcame them, and your accomplishments by using numbers for effect.

  1.     List your soft skills

Soft skills, the personal attributes that enable you to interact well with others, are highly sought after in the workplace. Briefly list which soft skills you possess and believe qualify you and would help you flourish in the position you’re applying for. A tip? These are usually found in the job description. Add these throughout your resume in your work background and skills sections. 

Additionally, before hitting send, proofread it. Spell Check is your friend. Mistakes do happen but you don’t want your resume to be filled with silly typos and grammatical errors. Come back to your resume after time away and look it over for any mistakes you may have missed.

Crafting an attention-grabbing resume takes time and needs special attention to get just right. Remember that you want to focus on your positives and outline your career background that shows your quality and suitability in the best possible light. Alison’s Workplace Personality Assessment tool can help you discover your strengths, and the results will serve as a guide to what career path you’re best suited for.

Follow these best practices and you’ll be well on your way to receiving that invitation to interview.

Word of the Day: betrothal

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Word of the Day: betrothal

The word betrothal has appeared in 10 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on April 27 in “‘Polite Society’ Review: Pride and Plenty of Fists” by Amy Nicholson:

Ria, our protagonist, vows to stop the wedding. She enlists her best friends Alba (Ella Bruccoleri) and Clara (Seraphina Beh) in the cause, who step into view, one on each of Ria’s elbows, with the snap of backup dancers. Stubborn and snotty, Ria is so hellbent on breaking up the betrothal that she’s willing to spy and lie, claw and kick. She gets as good as she gives, ending more than one scene in a bloody, heaving heap. At the same time, the audience can appreciate what Ria is too childish to see: Lena’s joy that the neighborhood screw-up has landed its most eligible bachelor.

Can you correctly use the word betrothal in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.

If you want a better idea of how betrothal can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.

Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.

The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary. See every Word of the Day in this column.

Turn Your Dreams into Reality: The Ultimate Guide

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Turn Your Dreams into Reality: The Ultimate Guide

We all have dreams. The ones we keep secret and hope one day we’ll finally work on, and make come true. What holds us back is how daunting they can be. They seem too big or impossible to become reality for many reasons.  But what if there was a way to make them come true? What if you had a step-by-step guide to turning your dreams into a reality? There is. Keep reading and we’ll show you how.

First things first

You need to lay out your plan. You need to define your dream. Be clear about what it is exactly that you dream of and want to achieve. What does your dream look like? Ask yourself what your vision is. Write it down. Putting pen to paper will help you stay focused and motivated. And more than that, once you’ve written it down, it becomes real and not just something in your imagination that you can’t hold yourself to. 

The plan

Now that your dream is defined, the next step is to draw up a plan to achieve them. Have you ever heard the question, ‘How do you eat an elephant?’ at first glance, it seems insurmountable right? Where do you begin? Can you even finish it? The answer is ‘yes, you can’. The answer is you eat an elephant one bite at a time.

  • Set clear goals: be specific and clear. Make them measurable and set a time frame for ticking these off your list.
  • Break it down: the idea is you need to break your dream down into smaller, bite-sized, and achievable pieces.
  • Identify potential obstacles: what challenges do you anticipate getting in your way?
  • Find solutions: what steps can you take to overcome these challenges and obstacles?
  • Take the first bite: take the first step towards your dreams.

Take small steps every day to get you closer to the dream. And remember to track your progress as you go. This helps you stay on course and reevaluate if your plan is working. And if not, the course of action to take to fix things.

Put in the work

Yes. Dreams don’t magically happen. They need work. In the same way as you don’t simply win the lottery, you need to go out, pick your numbers, and pay for the ticket. No one is going to make your dream come true for you. It’s all up to you. Everything worth having is worth fighting for, right? Imagine the sense of pride and achievement you’ll feel when you start seeing the results. You need to develop a strong work ethic, go the extra mile, let go of the excuses and work.

 Be prepared to make sacrifices

The reason many people don’t go after their dreams is that they aren’t willing to sacrifice. Understandably so. It’s not easy and perhaps also why only a handful of people live out their dreams. If your dream is to own your own house then you need to make financial sacrifices to pay that deposit which means cutting back on nights out, shopping for a cute top or game, or simply spending without a second thought. Sacrifices don’t mean that this will be your life forever. But it does mean that for a short while, you won’t get to enjoy all the little pleasures. Remind yourself you will be able to do so again soon.

Surround yourself with the right people

 “You’re the average of the five people spend the most time with”, Jim Rohn. This is true not just when you’re pursuing your dreams but for everything you do in life. And there are layers to it.

  • Remove the negative: this doesn’t mean cutting people out of your life but means you could spend less time with those who discourage you or give you reasons to quit.
  • Find your experts: go out and find people that you look up to and who are successful or experts in their field. These people don’t have to have travelled your exact path, but they have tried (and failed), learned lessons along the way, and stayed par for the course. Seek their counsel, ask questions, and ask them to share their secrets to success.
  • Build your community: these are your friends and family who not only share your dream and want to see you succeed but are willing to help you and carry the cost of your sacrifices. These people will encourage you along the way and offer support along your journey. 
  • Ask for help. There is no shame in recognising you don’t know the answers, which next step to take, or what to do. Nobody has all the answers at the start of the journey. 

Keep your eye on the prize

You are bound to face challenges. You may get discouraged and want to quit. It will get hard, and you’ll most likely start doubting yourself and wonder if the dream really is worth it. It is.

Quitting is easy. Everyone does it. But this is where you get to dig deep, prove your mettle, and show just how much you want this dream. When you are tempted to quit, remember why you started and look at the progress (remember what we mentioned about tracking your progress?) you’ve made. If you fall, pause (don’t stop), and get back up and keep going. Remember that every step you take is taking you closer to your dream. And if you aren’t sure you have what it takes to go after your dreams, take our workplace personality assessment below. This quick and easy assessment tests your strengths, and weaknesses, and helps you discover more about who you are.

Personality test

Remember to have fun along the way. Enjoy the process. The future belongs to those who believe in the power of their dreams. Make yours one of them.

Word of the Day: persistent

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Word of the Day: persistent

The word persistent has appeared in 805 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on May 24 in “Halle Bailey: ‘The Little Mermaid’ Star Connects With Her Inner Ariel” by Kalia Richardson:

On a video call from her apartment in Los Angeles, she spoke gently, as if her words would catch fire, smiling politely between pauses and flashing her embellished nails from the Met Gala a week before. But don’t let her sugary sweet demeanor and kind eyes fool you. Bailey, who will star as a young Nettie in the musical adaptation of “The Color Purple” in December, said she hadn’t been afraid to dive into something big — in this case her first major film role — and had possessed a go-getter spirit since early adolescence, despite an overprotective father.

She was born into a musical family. OutKast, Jill Scott and Musiq Soulchild rang throughout their Atlanta home, and she gravitated to jazz artists like Nina Simone and Billie Holiday. Halle and Chloe Bailey, now 24, performed around the city for anyone who would listen. They were persistent — “Can we sing for you?” she remembered asking the So So Def record executive Jermaine Dupri — and soon local producers knew their names. Online, they posted their covers of classic R&B titles, and when their take on Beyoncé’s “Best Thing I Never Had” went viral, it led to their discovery by the star herself, who subsequently signed them to her label, Parkwood Entertainment.

Can you correctly use the word persistent in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.

If you want a better idea of how persistent can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.

Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.

The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary. See every Word of the Day in this column.

Common Questions Everyone Has When Making Their First Pull Request (& Answers)

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Common Questions Everyone Has When Making Their First Pull Request (& Answers)

For many new developers, the most intimidating aspect of contributing to an open-source project is realizing that everyone can see your work — but that’s also one of the biggest benefits. 

Showing off your coding chops and sharing technical expertise is how you build a reputation in the developer community, which is important when you’re trying to break into tech. Hiring managers want to see a polished GitHub profile that proves you can write and read code, understand Git, collaborate with other developers, and communicate effectively. 

Learn something new for free

Docs, our open-contribution coding documentation, lives on GitHub and is a solid entrypoint for anyone interested in contributing to open-source software. From absolute beginners who are grappling with syntax to pro developers with years of experience, Docs is a safe space that devs of all levels can work on and use.

As you write Docs for coding terms and concepts, you’re also giving back to the Codecademy community by sharing your knowledge. A Doc that you contribute could help someone cross the finish line on a coding project or nail a question during a technical interview. 

Taking the leap from scrolling open issues on GitHub to actually clicking the green “create pull request” button can feel nerve-wracking and vulnerable. Ahead we’ll answer common questions that many newcomers have the first time they submit a pull request, so you can feel confident contributing code.

What is a pull request anyways?

A pull request, aka PR, is a request you make to the project maintainers to have them review and (hopefully) merge your changes into the main codebase. In other words, a PR is essentially a way of asking: Can I make a suggestion? 

Making a PR is the last step before your code gets merged into a project’s main codebase. In the free course Learn GitHub: Best Practices, you can learn exactly how to make a clear PR. And when it comes to making a PR on your own, you can always bookmark our step-by-step tutorial (complete with video demos) for how to create a PR in the Docs Contribution Guide.

What makes a “good” pull request?

As a newbie, you might second-guess whether your contribution is significant enough to warrant a change or doubt the value that you’re adding to a project — and that’s totally valid. For starters, make sure you’re choosing the right issue to work on. In GitHub, you can browse issues tagged “good first issue” or “help wanted” to find beginner-friendly open issues. Take a look at what’s tagged a “good first issue” in the Docs repo.

With practice, you’ll get the hang of submitting PRs and won’t stumble through the steps of the process. In general, a good PR:

  • Includes a concise and clear description that contextualizes the change
  • Contains useful comments and commit messages for the reviewer
  • Is small enough to be reviewed and merged quickly

What happens if I mess something up in my code or get rejected? 

No one is going to put you down or judge you if you make a mistake or forget to include a detail in your contribution. Having your code reviewed by someone else (especially a more experienced programmer) for the first time can feel scary, but it’s a huge part of learning and growing as a developer. 

Be open to receiving constructive criticism: The project maintainers will review your proposed changes, and may provide feedback, ask questions, and start discussions about specific lines of code. And while there’s always a possibility that your change isn’t merged, don’t let fear of rejection keep you from trying.

With Docs, the maintainers who review PRs have “collaborator” badges on their profiles. Maintainers look over your code for things like technical accuracy, formatting standards, typos or bugs, and plagiarism. Remember: These are real humans with thoughts and emotions who want you to succeed! 

People in the open-source community are generally welcoming and supportive of beginners, and they understand that contributing is an opportunity for learning and improvement. Not to mention, most folks can remember being in your position and can empathize with impostor syndrome. 

How do I know if my contributions are actually implemented? 

Assuming your changes have been reviewed and approved, a project maintainer will merge your branch into the main codebase. This makes things official: The code you wrote and changes you made are part of the project’s codebase — congrats!

You’ll get credit for any contributions you make, and other folks (like fellow devs and even recruiters) can see you work too. In Docs, for example, you’ll see all the contributors listed at the bottom of the page with links to Codecademy profiles. (Be sure to link your GitHub and Codecademy profiles so you get recognized for your Docs work.) You can add your Docs experience to your resume, or use it as a talking point next time you’re interviewing for a job. 

GUEST BLOG: Some of Those who Wander Are Found

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GUEST BLOG: Some of Those who Wander Are Found

In an article in the 2012 journal Association for Psychological Science titled “Inspired by Distraction: Mind Wandering Facilitates Creative Incubation,” authors Baird et. al looked at the link between solving problems in creative ways and providing an opportunity for those solutions to occur. Let’s look at what the study examined then what it could mean for teachers. First, imagine a group of adults are given a brick and are asked for a list of possible uses for the brick. Before the group begins thinking of creative building patterns for the brick, they discover the catch; the uses of the brick must be different from the brick’s typical purpose. How many uses can the person list before the well of creativity runs dry? After a short period of time, the group is stopped and divided into four sub-groups. They are either given a somewhat taxing activity that requires them to use their memory, they are given a more laissez-faire activity that allows their mind a chance to wander at will, they are given a chance to rest, or they are instructed to simply continue thinking of new uses for the brick. After a period of time, all groups return to the original task, finding new uses for that brick. Which of these sub-groups created the most extensive list of uses? It is not, as a demanding teacher may assume, the group pushed to continue without a break, nor is it the group, as perhaps the well-meaning teacher might believe, the group given a short rest period. Instead, the group who is given the easier task – not the memory-dependent one – created the most extensive list of possible uses for that very ordinary brick.

Does this mean in order to solve a problem, we simply should allow our minds to think of anything but the problem and roam at will? Not exactly. Instead, if the problem solver believes no further solutions are forthcoming, the problem solver can find success in redirecting attention towards a separate but less daunting task. Imagine an astrophysicist determinedly attempting to measure the diameter of a black hole that lies several thousand light years away. The astrophysicist, struggling with immense computations, may find not only respite and solace in a quick word search but may also become more successful in future calculations because of the mental diversion – the mind wandering.

Classroom Application

How can we put this information to use in the classroom? First, instead of reprimanding students who seem to need those moments of mind-wandering, we should encourage them. We can initiate periodic times in the day or class period to encourage students to divert their mental focus from one more demanding task to one more creative and mentally freeing. Students attempting to power through a lengthy literary essay may benefit from five or ten minutes of drawing or some guided meditation.

Students struggling with one complicated calculus problem may reach the solution with much less stress and much more confidence if they are prompted to hum the words to their favorite song or imagine eating their favorite ice cream. Although this area of cognition has many mazes left unsolved, it seems as if the solution may not result solely from endless hours spent pouring over surveys, test results, and interviews. The solutions to this cognitive query and indeed many others, may be in doing the opposite of what many of our teachers told us. Instead of adhering to the admonition to “pay attention and focus more,” perhaps we should, on occasion, “lose attention and focus less.” Who knows what uses we may all find for those bricks in the process?

How LMSs Improve Employee Onboarding Process

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How LMSs Improve Employee Onboarding Process

If you aren’t learning, you aren’t growing. This is the mindset adopted by many successful leaders and businesses. It is this approach to learning and development that builds a strong workforce – the backbone of any organisation. Learning is a lifelong process that begins when an employee joins a company and continues throughout their tenure in the organisation. in this article, we’re discussing how LMSs can improve the employee onboarding process.

Why use an LMS to onboard new employees

“Onboarding” is the process where new employees are integrated into the company. The new hires are taken through an orientation process where they learn about the business, its culture, values, mission, and organisational structure. A learning management system (LMS) is a new, improved, and innovative way to onboard new employees. Some of the benefits of using an LMS to train new employees are listed below:

  • Employees can access the e-learning library on their own time
  • An LMS allows you to monitor how much learning employees have gone through and still need to learn
  • Video tutorials mean the new members can view them multiple times
  • New employees benefit from the mobile-friendly features LMS offers

How an LMS can help you streamline new employee onboarding

Training is a big and necessary aspect of employee onboarding. Below we outline how an LMS like the one available on Alison can help you streamline your employee onboarding process.

  • Standardise the knowledge shared among all employees. One of the key advantages of an online LMS is that it ensures that members across all departments, regardless of where they are based, receive the same information and quality of training.
  • Improves cost-effectiveness of onboarding. An LMS can be a cost-effective way to onboard employees. This is because of the costs saved in paying for instructor fees, venue hire, transportation, and days lost being away from the office to undergo the necessary training.
  • Manage all training centrally. Training is a necessity for current and new employees because it’s a big component of their professional growth. An LMS allows you to centrally manage all your organisation’s training, upload updated content, courses and ensure that these are accessible company-wide
  • Improve onboarding scalability. Whether you’re onboarding one, five, or 10 employees, an LMS system to onboard employees remains the same. With this, you don’t have to change the contents or delivery and it can be presented to all participants in one setting.
  • Monitor your employee’s progress. An LMS also allows you to monitor the progress and development of new members. It also means you can assess their level of competency in specific skill areas and then provide guidance and instruction on how to help them improve their performance.
  • Automate tasks. The onboarding process is comprised of large volumes of documents that are time-consuming in both creating, organising and distributing them. With an LMS, you can automate the process with notifications, setting up calendars, and emails to ensure the new staff stay on top of their training and meet all the set deadlines.
  • Make feedback simple. Because you’re able to track employee progress using the LMS, you can provide feedback and lay out a plan to improve and bridge the skill gap evident in your new hires.
  • Allow personalisation. LMSs are designed for each user to have individual profiles. With this, you can tailor the learning paths to meet their specific needs and skills shortage areas. Additionally, through personalised LMSs, you can create different paths for business-wide onboarding and specialised courses for various positions.
  • Smooth remote onboarding. An online LMS system allows users to access the learning modules remotely and thus, reduces the necessity of downloading and installing software. Its flexibility and convenience give a way for you to train all new employees simultaneously.
  • Maximise new employee engagement while going through onboarding. An engaged workforce is a strong workforce, and you want to cultivate an engaged workforce from the first day. Using an LMS as an onboarding process can be immersive, inspiring, and exciting, with rich and visually appealing content. This will keep new recruits actively engaged with the material, a good start to their tenure at your organisation.

These are just some of the many ways LMSs can make your onboarding process more streamlined and thus more effective.

Would you like to empower your employees for free?

Alison’s free learning management system (LMS) can help empower your new employees and keep the older staff included in the learning, skills, and development processes. It allows you to create individual learning paths from its over 4000+ courses across a wide range of subjects and industries. Alison’s LMS is quick and simple. You can sign up:

  • An unlimited number of team members
  • Enjoy its quick and easy set-up time
  • Aggregate and individual reporting: set up your group’s training progress with a choice of daily, weekly, or monthly reports, you can keep track of the academic progress your team makes.

Word of the Day: ominous

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Word of the Day: ominous

The word ominous has appeared in 339 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on May 1 in “An Art Professor Says A.I. Is the Future. It’s the Students Who Need Convincing” by Zachary Small:

The evening started with a provocation. Weiler asked everyone to close their eyes and imagine what values should be passed onto the future. Then the students broke into groups and came up to a podium to pitch their A.I.-generated artworks.

Zhang and her teammates adopted an ominous tone in “Dream Apocalypse,” an hourlong immersive experience that used A.I. to imagine a world where society has crumbled. They described it in their pitch as “‘Your greatest nightmare’ meets ‘Inception’ meets ‘Russian Doll’ meets Sisyphus.” Audiences would confront their fears, prompted by apocalyptic images from Midjourney, like one featuring a child gazing at the mushroom cloud of a nuclear blast.

Can you correctly use the word ominous in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.

If you want a better idea of how ominous can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.

Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.

The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary. See every Word of the Day in this column.

Reporting Early Success of our National Initiative with the Ministry of Higher Education & Science, Republic of Kazakhstan to Prepare University Students for the Digital Economy

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Reporting Early Success of our National Initiative with the Ministry of Higher Education & Science, Republic of Kazakhstan to Prepare University Students for the Digital Economy

By Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera

In response to a growing skills gap and accelerating population growth, the Republic of Kazakhstan partnered with Coursera in March 2023 to uplevel their higher education system. Through this partnership, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education set out to equip both students and faculty with digital and other essential skills and credentials to succeed in a digital economy. The Ministry has integrated over 650 courses from the world’s top universities and companies on Coursera for credit across 25 public universities in the Republic. 

National implementation and swift adoption of various programs after the initial launch have been made possible through the close collaboration of the government, higher education systems, and strategic partners such as Bilim Media Group (BMG). Since the launch, 20,000 students and faculty have signed up and spent nearly 100,000 hours learning new skills online, amassing 40,000 enrollments and completing over 25,000 courses. 

Together with Sayasat Nurbek, Minister of Science and Higher Education, Republic of Kazakhstan and Rauan Kenzhekhanuly, CEO, Bilim Media Group, celebrating the early success of the Coursera Qazaqstan Project and the exceptional progress made by the university students

“In the context of globalization and digitalization, amid increasing competition in the global labor market, it is imperative to establish a flexible and open national education system that fosters continuous learning and enhances professional skills. The initiation of the Coursera Qazaqstan Project marks a significant milestone, as it involves the translation of courses taught by world-renowned professors into Kazakh. This initiative holds paramount importance for our nation’s future, our language, and the overall enhancement of education quality and accessibility,” said Sayasat Nurbek, Minister of Science and Higher Education, Republic of Kazakhstan.

The courses and credentials in the program, available in Kazakh, English, and Russian languages, focus on high-demand STEM and digital skills and career readiness for students seeking digital jobs. This includes over 30 entry-level Professional Certificates designed by industry leaders, including Google, IBM, SAP, and Meta, to prepare learners with no prior work experience for entry-level careers in fields such as cybersecurity, project management, UX design, and software development. 

“Inspiring student motivation requires more than just course localization. It necessitates the provision of methodological support and the integration of these courses into the university curriculum,” said Rauan Kenzhekhanuly, CEO, BMG.

The most popular courses from the initiative include: 

The remarkable progress of this program follows an impactful initial partnership with the Republic of Kazakhstan Ministry of Labor and Social Protection and Coursera Workforce Recovery Initiative in 2020, a pandemic response initiative that provided governments no-cost access to Coursera to retrain displaced workers for in-demand jobs.

We’re excited to join forces with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in empowering university students with critical skills to flourish in the digital economy. The early success is a testament to the demand for these job-ready programs and serves as a powerful blueprint for how governments and higher education systems can collaborate to train the entire student population with in-demand skills using Coursera. 

For more information about Coursera for Government, visit coursera.org/government.  

How to Reach Out to Someone on LinkedIn (Without Sounding Needy)

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How to Reach Out to Someone on LinkedIn (Without Sounding Needy)

We often hear stories about Codecademy learners who land entry-level positions in tech because they used the professional networking platform LinkedIn. For example, learners have used LinkedIn to get discovered by recruiters, share updates about their learning journey, and connect with people whose careers they admire. 

But for as ubiquitous as LinkedIn is, sometimes it can feel awkward or cringey to send a cold message to someone you’ve never met in hopes that they’ll help your career. (On the other hand, receiving a vague or demanding message from a stranger can be off-putting.) Being intentional about how you phrase your LinkedIn message can boost your chances of getting a response and lead to meaningful connections. 

The key when sending a LinkedIn message is to “be interested, not just interesting,” explains Carolyn Lai Moore, Career Strategist and Founder of Wildlight. Basically what that means is you should express your genuine curiosity about the person you’re messaging, and think of ways you can provide value to the person — don’t just spew your qualifications and make the message all about you.

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Another important point: With networking, there shouldn’t be any expectations on the person you’re contacting, Carolyn says. “It’s not transactional,” she says. “And the more you can check yourself on this, the more you’ll avoid sounding needy or desperate.”

Ahead Carolyn breaks down how to send an effective LinkedIn message, including lots of examples to help you get started. Want even more LinkedIn tips? Carolyn is hosting a free virtual event for the Codecademy community all about how to optimize your LinkedIn profile and increase your visibility on the platform. RSVP for the virtual event on June 28 at 1 pm ET.

What to say in a LinkedIn message for networking

Here are some general rules that you should keep in mind when you’re sending a message to someone on LinkedIn because you’d like to network with them. 

Be specific 

Take the time to look over details about this person’s career, and think of a clear question you’d like to ask them. “People love to be seen and love to know that they are noticed,” Carolyn says. Avoid asking irrelevant questions or getting key details about their career wrong (like the company they work for), which can make a cold message seem like spam. 

Example: How’d you go from Software Engineer II to Engineering Director in just a few years?

Find common ground

“Networking is about creating community,” Carolyn says. Part of that includes embracing your own story and being true to yourself, rather than inflating your experience or background just to get noticed. See if there are any commonalities that you have with the person that can make your connection feel more authentic, she says.

Example: I see you’ve taken some Codecademy courses — I’m currently enrolled in Codecademy’s Front-End Engineer career path and am hoping to change careers.

Provide value

A common networking mistake that folks make is only reaching out to people when you need something, like a reference for a job or someone to review a project you coded. Think about the ways you might be able to provide value for the person, but remember that networking shouldn’t be transactional, Carolyn says. 

Example: I noticed that you’re looking for folks to contribute to your open-source project. I’d love to help out somehow! I’m focusing on projects right now so I can get experience and build my portfolio.

With all those tips in mind, here’s an example of a message that a dev we’ll call “Codey” might send to a career switcher who they found on LinkedIn and works in cybersecurity:

Hi [person’s name],

I stumbled upon your LinkedIn profile recently and I have to say, I am blown away by your career journey. Your achievements and impact in tech are beyond impressive, and I couldn’t resist reaching out to connect.

I’m interested to hear more about your career path, specifically how you changed fields from healthcare to cybersecurity, and the experiences, challenges, and pivotal moments that shaped your professional trajectory. 

I’m trying to follow a similar footprint to your career: I’m learning to code with Codecademy with a goal of getting a job in cybersecurity or IT by next year. I’m brand new to the tech industry, and I think I could learn a lot from your wealth of experience. (And it’s always inspiring to hear the stories behind people’s success!) 

If you’re open to it, I would be thrilled to connect with you and have a chat. We could grab a virtual coffee or chat via messages — whichever works best for you. Hope to hear from you soon.

All best,
Codey

Following these tips won’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll get a message back when you contact people on LinkedIn, but it could improve your chances of a response. And who knows? That connection could lead you one step closer to your dream job in tech.

For even more expert LinkedIn advice, don’t forget to RSVP for Carolyn’s event about how to get seen on LinkedIn, happening on June 28 at 1 pm ET. (Insider tip: Brush up your LinkedIn page ahead of the event, because Carolyn will do a live audit of select LinkedIn profiles during the event!) 

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