Just because you\u2019re out of action does not mean you don\u2019t have opportunities to stay sharp and keep your skills updated.\u00a0\u00a0 If you are on a job search, there are four great ways to stay at the top of your field.<\/p>\n
Participate in forums.<\/strong> It doesn\u2019t matter what your subject is \u2013 there is an online forum for like-minded people who congregate and discuss it regularly.\u00a0 Read the posts frequently, respond and join the conversation, contribute your own ideas, start threads that ask questions.\u00a0 If you\u2019re concerned about expressing genuine or controversial opinions only to have future employers find them, just use a made-up name and be vague about your personal details.\u00a0 So hit Google and look for discussion boards, forums and so on in your field and get started today.<\/p>\n Take a college class.<\/strong>\u00a0 You can make the time to attend a course.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to be graded, ask to audit the course at registration.\u00a0 Community colleges are widespread and inexpensive, and auditing is sometimes even less.\u00a0 Doing this can expand your horizons and introduce you to new thinking in addition to whatever skill you may be learning.\u00a0 Never underestimate the value of that sort of exposure.\u00a0 Search for community colleges in your area for more information.<\/p>\n Volunteer your time.<\/strong> Just because nobody is hiring you to do what you do does not mean you have to stop doing it.\u00a0 Find a place where you can do 15 or 20 hours per week in your field of expertise.\u00a0 You get to stay sharp, it helps pass the time, will likely improve your mood, gives you some regular interaction, you may learn something new, and it may even lead to a full-time job.\u00a0 Websites like VolunteerMatch.com<\/a> and Serve.gov<\/a> are good places to start, or simply identify organizations and businesses in your area that you would like to be involved with and contact them with your offer to volunteer time.<\/p>\n Leverage online learning.<\/strong> The Internet is overflowing with spectacular education resources that are very inexpensive or even free.\u00a0 The problem? When we\u2019re working it is very difficult to carve out the time to consume online learning.\u00a0 One thing the Internet does great is port a traditional class into a video format which allows you to \u201cattend\u201d from your own home and on your own time.\u00a0 For IT and management professionals, GogoTraining is an excellent provider of IT training courses <\/a>taught by industry experts at rates that are a fraction of what most in-person instruction costs (and even beats the price of online competitors for the quality).<\/p>\n Unemployment can be a challenging time.\u00a0 Take advantage of these ways to stay up on your skills.\u00a0 Your career (and mind) will thank you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just because you\u2019re out of action does not mean you don\u2019t have opportunities to stay sharp and keep your skills updated.\u00a0\u00a0 If you are on a job search, there are four great ways to stay at the top of your field. Participate in forums. It doesn\u2019t matter what your subject is \u2013 there is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-job-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}