Diana Clement: Upskill to boost your earning power

Quick wins can be had with free and cheap courses focused on skills. Photo / 123RF

Getting stuck into study is a great way to boost your most important asset: your income. Bite-sized study can help.

Thanks to a former colleague looking to get back into the workforce, I've been perusing online courses.

Quick wins can be had with free and cheap courses focused on skills. These are probably most relevant to those people who want to get back into the workforce or those stuck in a rut who don't have the confidence to step up.

My ex-colleague feels that the skills she needs have moved on in a nearly 20-year break from work. In her case, it's a matter of brushing up on software such as Microsoft Word and Excel. That's free and easy with online courses provided by the likes of Unitec and Literacy Aotearoa.

Courses can be found online for these and virtually any type of in-demand skill or software imaginable: from CAD design to medical practice management software. Planned well, bite-sized learning can be stacked and add up to a qualification over time.

Careers New Zealand's website is one place to look if you want New Zealand-based courses. It has a database of "micro credentials" (bite-sized learning modules), short courses, certificate courses and other courses.

I'm forever fascinated by the options available from all four corners of the world. I was perusing the EdX.org website, which includes free MOOC (massive open online course) courses taught by some of the world's top universities, such as Harvard. If you need skills and don't need a certificate or degree, then this can be a good way to gain them.

Some of the courses available through EdX are quite specialised. For example, if your interest is forensic engineering (AKA how to determine the cause of collapsed buildings and crashed aeroplanes), then there is a course available online from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The majority of courses are very much more mainstream.

Alternatives to EdX include LinkedIn Learning, which has a very long list of courses. I note that if you sign in with your Auckland Library card, most are free.

Online courses don't work for all learners. Sometimes, I think, it's worth paying for live, in-person training, or at least live Zoom classes.

If you're already in the workforce and upskilling could be of benefit to your existing employer as well as your pay packet, then the company might pay for the course. It may be a matter of putting a good argument forward.

Heather Lowery-Kappes, president of the Career Development Association of New Zealand (CDANZ), says short skills-based courses are becoming more accepted and can be a wonderful way to pick up skills or build confidence. "Doing something that might be required of a particular job for example: how to use a specific software programme you have not used before or to show you have a qualification in a skill you have used but do not have formal training in."

If you don't know where to start, says Lowery-Kappes, a member of her CDANZ can help you identify your current transferable skills and look for short-term courses that will fill those gaps.

If you need a degree for your career goal, it will be a long game. You might have to quit work and study full time. Or at least do a number of papers each year. It may well be possible to move into the industry in question with half a degree under your belt and continue study. If it's a higher-paid industry than the one you're in, then taking a pay cut for a sideways move could be a smart financial decision long term, providing you can afford to live in the meantime.

If you think you have no time for courses, so did I. That was until I signed up for a course this year at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. When you're interested in what you're studying, you find the time.