Online courses have been increasingly popular these days. Probably you are a learner who work on the day and take online courses at night, contemplating to pursue a job that fits you the most.
Yes, the online courses have bridged the gap between you and your ideal work, but how do you list those online courses on your resume? You might have taken 10, or even more. Should you list all of them?
The Muse, a special sector on Forbes recently posts an article on how to properly list those courses that you have spent a lot of time with on your resume. Senior recruiters were interviewed and they shared some very inspiring insights:
Picture from The Huffington Post
Put Them at a Proper Place
You have to have priorities on how you want to be seen on a A4 paper. Online courses can be a plus, but you should never let them overshadow your other valuable experiences, which enable the recruiters to understand you more. Human resource managers might have to scan more than 100 copies of resume, thus how to impress them within the first second or two probably can depend whether you can get further. So, think about it. Do you really want to list the courses you take at a very important place?
Anne Lewis, the Director of Sales and Recruitment for Betts Recruiting, a firm specializing in recruitment for technology companies believes that MOOCs can help to make candidate profiles stronger, especially junior candidates who don’t have as much experience. “Just keep the list of the courses short.” She recommends put the course list in a small area, like ” Professional Training”.
Make It Relevant
The second thing to bear in mind is that you should only list the courses that are relevant to the job. For example, if you are applying for a data scientist position, probably it is more appropriate to list the Statistics or Math courses, instead of music or Painting. Lewis suggests that we should edit the course list according to the job nature of the one you are applying for. Again, you should think from the aspect of the recruiters and give them what they want.
Skip the Intro ones
The third advice is to only keep the ones that distinguish from other candidates. Yes, you learnt a lot from Economics 101 and the supply and demand curve are really inspiring, but you should consider that the the job you are applying is in banking industry. The recruiters just take it for granted.
Show How You Put Your Skills Into Practices
You want to persuade the recruiters that the courses that you taken has qualified you for the job. Why not move a step further to prove that you have fully understand the courses and are able to use them in a practical way? After all, what they are looking for is your competence.
If you did some small-scale project, or participated in a some related competition, just don’t hesitate showing them together with the courses.
Prepaid To Be Questioned
Hopefully your resume is good enough to get you an interview. You should know that the interviewer might be interested in any part of your resume. Once you put them on your resume, you should be prepared to any question related to them.
For example, you might be asked “You took a course related to international business, do you mind tell me something about that?”. You don’t want to lose your job simply because you forgot the contents of a online course you took before.
Listing online classes on your resume is a definite do. Just make sure you do it thoughtfully so you’re sending the right message about your continuing education. After all, you worked hard to complete all these courses in your free time, you owe it to yourself to make sure they count.
If you think you should take more courses before you can get the next interview, come to LOOP.sg and claim your skillsFuture Credit. Fill the gaps in your resume!
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