Skillpath Training (or other online training)

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Personally, I've not been impressed with those seminars. Our workplace likes to see you do them as "professional development", but I'd rather not. I think if I were looking for work and/or changing fields, I'd focus more on hard skills specific to the new field or industry, rather than soft skills. Unless I felt I needed some personal work in some soft skill, I'd be quicker to invest in learning a piece of software or program or getting certified in something, rather than learning about something intangible like 'teamwork'.

[alabamagal]

I'm with Rocky on this. I interview for work quite a bit. A lot of the people have very little work experience (some just out of college). I don't necessarily expect a person to have "all the correct answers" for work situations. There are other ways to "demonstrate initiative, enthusiasm, flexibility, and teamwork" that do not involve taking an online class.

I would be more impressed with initiative to learn job skills.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Jul 3, 2012 9:43:51 GMT -5 @wrongsideof30 said:

For one specific job he is applying for, the second item listed under Job Summary is:

"Demonstrates initiative, enthusiasm, flexibility and teamwork in accomplishing responsibilities."

I'm not sure it would add enough value to his resume to warrant the price. To me, it would be more of something he could work into his resume while outlining previous job experience. He can highlight things he worked with others to create or accomplish in previous jobs, for free.

ETA: This is where tailoring your resume becomes an art form. You can tweak it for each position by noticing things like this and shifting the focus of your outline a little.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Jul 3, 2012 9:55:03 GMT -5 @wrongsideof30 said:

His job experience just sucks. He's worked in a warehouse/factory for the past 15 years and most of his work has been autonomous.

Be creative! There have to be situations where he worked with others or helped create things. I'm just an office drone, and I've been able to 'be creative' and find things that highlight soft skills.

[nittanycheme]

I have taken some of those types of classes through my workplace, and they always seem to teach things that feel like common sense to me. Does he have any outside "team" interests that he could highlight? I mean, i have a volunteer organization I work with and we do some team things, and I know a lot of people who are on adult sports teams, or on church committees that could show "teamwork" skills. In fact, some of those might be more impressive since there is sometimes less incentive to get things done since there isn't a company profit margin involved. I've been involved in sports teams, church and volunteer committees, and school groups in various times in my life, and maybe that is why some of their techniques feel like common sense to me (since I am well aware that common sense isn't actually that common).

If he doesn't have any of those activities, it might actually be more beneficial to him to join one/some that he actually has an interest in. He can learn teamwork by practice, do something he enjoys, and expand his network. Depending on what it is, they may have some of these type of learning experiences. I know that the Junior League does stuff like this, although its a women's club. There may be orgs like that for men, or co-ed.