As a graduate - or even an undergraduate - it can be really difficult to find relevant experience to put on your CV. It can feel silly, at times, to submit a CV to a job application when there's nothing on it but your education and some voluntary work your school forced you into when you were 16. In aid of this, here are some free programmes you can find online which give you the chance to learn some new skills - they can help boost your CV or just give you something new to learn!
1. Google Digital Garage
Google Digital Garage is top of the list for a reason. There are so many learning opportunities on Digital Garage; I personally used it for Analytics Academy but there are a range of courses on online marketing, search engines, social media, data and career development. You can take a singular module, or a whole course, and you can even become certified. And it's all free.
2. Wix
No, this isn't sponsored, I just think that Wix is a brilliant platform. Wix makes it so incredibly easy to build a website that even someone as unknowledgeable about tech as me could build this one - and this is a pretty nice website, even if I do say so myself.
It's really easy to experiment on Wix, tweaking and re-designing until you're happy with your creation. Plus, you can go back as much as you want to change and add and take away, making every element just the way you want it!
Wix is damn good for practising design, learning how to put a website together, and even creating yourself a portfolio.
3. Wordpress Much like Wix, Wordpress is a great platform for experimenting with design. A blogging tool and publishing platform, Wordpress lets you design your whole website, and is super intuitive for writing.
You can run multiple blogs and have multiple contributors to a blog. Though it's main purpose is for blogging, it's also used for other online content such as online stores, galleries, and forums. It's not quite as simple to build a website on Wordpress as it is on Wix, but it has brilliant blogging tools which are incredibly easy to learn so that you can dive straight into creating posts.
4. Gimp Basically a free version of photoshop, Gimp may have the worst name imaginable, but it is worth fighting through the pain of its name. Mostly because it is pretty much photoshop and who can argue with that?
5. Canva
Canva is one of the easiest graphic design tools out there. There are tons of templates to start with, or you can create your own and freestyle completely. It's super easy to use, with a drag and drop format, customisable fonts and graphics, access to free photos, image uploads, and a bunch of really useful formatting tools. Canva makes it so easy to look like a you've had help from a professional graphic designer, which is super useful for a portfolio, or even just personal use.
And, if you end up loving it and want to see what else it can do for you, there are paid extras available! (But the free version is brilliant too - I make all my instagram graphics on there)
6. Codecadmy
Codecademy is an online platform that offers free coding classes in 12 different programming languages including Python, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, SQL, C++, and Sass, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS. Now I don't have much idea what any of that means, but there are expert courses to help me understand all of it should I wish to! It makes learning to code and designing websites easy and interesting, and whilst there are paid plans if you're looking for something more in-depth and supported, introductory courses to help you get started are completely free.
I've used all of these except for Codecadmy (but don't worry, I did my research) and I can honestly tell you that they are all intuitive, super easy to learn, and definitely offer hard skills which can come in useful in a job - even if it just proves your ability and willingness to learn.
Adding programmes like these to your CV can offer a talking point in interviews to! They are hard skills which you can develop in your own time, continuing to learn as you search for a job. You're never going to have so much spare time again, so use it to keep developing yourself and try something new.
Are there any other free programmes you guys have taught yourself to use? Things that you can add to your CV or just things that you enjoy using in your own time? Let me know in the comments!
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