9 Best Online Professional Courses for Career Success

The corporate environment is rapidly changing. While job-hunting, we often focus on the eligibility of our hard skills for getting the position among the competitors. Which one is most important for success? It is obvious that you would try to gain expertise in the skills that are directly linked to the specific job tasks to pass the evaluation. However, there are many other soft skills and online certification courses for professional development that might go unnoticed by you. You can have a plethora of hard skill certificates, but you can still be denied the opportunity if you lack soft skills.

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In research conducted by the Carnegie Foundation and Stanford Research Centre, 85% of job success is the result of well-honed soft skills and people skills, while 15% of job success is the result of technical or hard skills. This speaks volumes about the significance of the best professional certification courses, which often end up being ignored by us.

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Soft skills are harder to define and measure as compared to hard skills, but they are equally important for being a successful professional. The way you interact with peers and your bosses comes under work ethics and plays a major role in deciding the fate of your interview or job. A study conducted by the renowned Harvard University found that 80% of the achievements in any career can be determined by the soft skills possessed by candidates and only 20% by their hard skills.

Thus, one needs to have a strong grasp on soft skills like conflict resolution, time management, emotional intelligence, effective communication, social skills, and the like to have a better shot at success. The rapid use of soft skills in combination with job-ready skills brings success in the professional, personal, and social spheres of our lives.

9 Best Professional Certification Courses For Career Success

Following are the top nine best professional certifications for career success that you can take up regardless of your field:

(Note: All the details mentioned in the table above have been accumulated by the team at Careers360.)

1. Creative Thinking: Techniques and Tools for Success by Coursera

The world has countless people working for the same job or on the same project as you. In this fast-paced race of competition, there is no scope for success unless you have something new and creative to offer.Hence, taking some of the best professional certification courses that entitle you to the capability of solving problems with new solutions and a fresh pair of eyes for new ideas gives you an edge over others.

Techniques and Tools for Success is one of the online certificate programs on Coursera that equips participants with a toolbox. It helps augment the innate creativity with a practical approach in the form of exercises, fun activities, and other brainstorming sessions that help in the long run. It is a 100% best-practice certification course of 19 hours with flexible deadlines. It is free of charge and would add value to not just your portfolio but also your personality.

2. Managing Stress for Positive Change on LinkedIn Learning

Workers deal all day with hectic tasks and strict deadlines. Hence, it is completely normal to sometimes fail to deliver the best quality or meet deadlines. Stress is bound to be present in all workplaces, regardless of the field. It is crucial to possess skills that can help you manage the work, not panic if things go south, and find a solution. This is why LinkedIn Learning offers some of the best professional certifications on “Managing Stress for Positive Change”.

This course teaches the steps to managing stress by providing your brain with what it craves during difficult situations. It also teaches you to stress your superpower and utilize it as fuel to work faster and better to bring about a positive change. It comes with project files, quizzes, and certificates that are awarded on completion—all free of charge. There are no hard-and-fast eligibility criteria, as managing stress is something that everyone goes through; thus, the course is open to all.

3. Negotiation Skills and Effective Communication on Edx

The “social” perspective of negotiations has a lasting impact on successful agreements and the relationship between client and negotiator post-agreement. You cannot have effective communication if you lack either listening, speaking, or both skills. And if you lack soft skills, you might not be able to close the deal with tactics alone. Ineffective communication or negotiation is bound to cost you a potential client because it disregards the social aspect of the conversation. Hence, effective communication skills are very important in the workplace.

Edx provides negotiation skills and effective communication certification courses of the duration of 4 weeks, given you invest 5-8 hours weekly. Such online professional certificate courses are available for free, with an additional charge of INR 10,887 for the certificate. It teaches the key negotiation skills that can help your negotiations reach a satisfactory agreement between both parties. This course is available to all, regardless of their educational background or type of work.

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4. Teamwork and Collaboration on Edx

Teamwork is an essential part of working in any firm. Can you work with someone who is not ready to listen, much less consider your ideas? We know the answer is a hard no. To collaborate effectively and enable teamwork to achieve its potential in the workplace, there is a need to enhance collaboration skills. The “Teamwork and Collaboration” course is available on Edx and is for the duration of 3 weeks, given you put in 4-6 hours per week.

Such online professional certifications are available for free, and on completion, you can score a certificate by paying INR 14,540. There are no hard-and-fast eligibility criteria for certifications earned through online courses on Edx. It is a self-paced, introductory-level course that teaches the complexities of interactions and group dynamics, the improvement of group climate through motivation, leadership skills, conflict management, and problem-solving skills.

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5. Collaboration and Emotional Intelligence on Udemy

Many people flaunt their IQ and work on improving it, but not many realize that EQ is just as important as IQ. The intelligence quotient, or IQ, measures the relative intelligence of people, and the emotional quotient, or EQ, identifies the ability of an individual to manage one's own emotions as well as those of others. That is why one can find many online professional certification courses on enhancing one’s EQ.

The Collaboration and Emotional Intelligence course on Udemy deals with more ways of maintaining collaborative relationships using emotional intelligence. It is available for INR 8,640 and teaches a way to manage multi-disciplinary teams at multiple levels within the organization. No prior knowledge is required to be eligible for this course, but a basic understanding of emotional intelligence is important.

6. Conflict Management Specialization on Coursera

A workforce consists of diverse members who have to collaborate and work together. However, with diversity comes conflict. It is of vital importance to have what it takes to convert conflict into cooperation. These skills and knowledge are incorporated into the course "Conflict Management Specialization" on Coursera. Such professional certificate courses help strengthen professional and personal relationships among peers and boost productivity.

It also aids in resolving intercultural conflicts. 75% of learners started a new career on completion of this course, and 20% got a raise. This online professional certificate program is 100% online for a 4-month duration with a flexible schedule. It is one of the free certificate courses with free enrollment, and certificates can be acquired for a minimal fee.

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7. Personality Types at Work on Coursera

Knowing oneself as well as the members of your team is very important to working effectively as a team. No matter what the field, you can experience professional as well as personal success only if you have a good understanding of the personalities of your peers. Out of all the professional certification courses, this one is appropriate for job seekers looking for value in their portfolio or existing team members working to ace the goals and assigned tasks.

Also, a manager needs to keep an eye on the personalities, strengths, and weaknesses of all the workers to get the best out of them. In either of the roles, enrolling in this course would bring great fortune. It is one of the free certificate courses with free enrollment, and you can earn a certificate upon completion for a small fee. It is a beginner-level, 100% online course with flexible deadlines. The duration is around 21 hours, and the course is in English with subtitles in many other languages like Russian, Spanish, French, and many more.

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8. Presentation Skills-Advanced: Speak Without Reading Notes on Udemy

Conversational skills and the capacity to make appealing presentations are crucial qualities for success in the modern world. Skills and strategies are necessary to capture the attention of others and confidently communicate your thoughts. This Udemy online professional course helps you develop the ability to speak effectively with people. It includes 29 hours of online classes, four articles, and two downloadable materials that support your ability to speak clearly with the viewers.

After completing this course, you will be equipped with the expertise and abilities needed to give presentations that educate, motivate, and convince. This helps to fascinate any audience and make an impression. Additionally, it also covers techniques for enhancing your ability to express yourself so that your presentations do not require any documents.

9. Top 5 Soft skills of Highly Successful People on Udemy

Business and leadership education focuses on “hard” skills for leading you to do your job efficiently. However, to become an effective professional in any field, soft skills are just as important. To acquire the top soft skills that are the secret behind successful people and professional certification, you can go to the Top 5 Soft Skills of Highly Successful People. It is a complete package of five soft skills that are highly demanded and can be seen in successful people. It is a better alternative for people looking for quantity in the certification course and not in-depth knowledge about every single skill individually.

This course is available on Udemy for INR 6,400 and works on enhancing communication skills, critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, negotiation skills, and decision-making skills. The eligibility criteria for this course are just a willingness to learn with an open mind. These soft skills are divided into multiple modules. This course is an ideal choice for budding as well as existing managers and leaders in various industries and fields.

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Conclusion

Hard skills are the brains behind any job, but soft skills are the heart that keep the overall functioning intact. In the absence of either, you become incompetent. To have something up your sleeves to set you apart is the demand of the present, and soft skills fall right into this category. Only with a combination of hard and soft skills would you stand a chance of scoring the jackpot in your field. These skills are not what your employer might be looking for, but they are a treasure that can bring you the success you aspire to.

Job-Ready Skills vs. Soft Skills: What’s the Difference?

Soft skills are the interpersonal skills and character traits that have an impact on the work and interactions taking place in any workplace and make you job-ready. The honing of skills like stress management, communication, negotiation, teamwork, and collaboration bears the sweet fruits of success in all professions. They help in creating a trusting and dependable atmosphere in the workplace, improving teamwork and employee satisfaction, attracting clients, and building good relationships with other workers.

According to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report, soft and job-ready skills like people management, creativity, and emotional intelligence would be some of the most important workplace readiness skills. So what are you waiting for? It is time to keep the old books at bay and dive into the world of job-ready skills courses.
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