Google Is Offering Free Career-Prep Courses to Help You Get a Job
A new partnership with Udacity will allow anyone to brush up on their resume writing, interviewing and other related skills.
By Lydia Belanger •
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Access to information via Google has always been free, thanks to its ad-revenue based model. But lately, it's been sharing a wealth of knowledge beyond Search, offering digital tools and learning opportunities to teachers, small businesses, startups, aspiring coders and more.
The latest opportunity, announced today, is a partnership between Google and online education platform Udacity, providing free online career development courses for job seekers at all career stages. The two companies have worked together in the past and launched a trial course, "Networking for Career Success," in March. Udacity provided scholarships toward the course to members of the Grow With Google program.
Now, the partners are expanding access to the general public, along with 11 additional career courses -- all free to enroll in. These courses will cover resume and cover letter writing, personal branding, tips for GitHub and LinkedIn profile building, as well as interviewing for technical roles involving Python and Swift, front-end development, virtual reality, Android and even iOS.
Related: Google Opens Up Its Tech Training Program to All, Giving You a Reason to Learn New Skills
"From our industry partners we've heard time and again that mastering career-centric 'soft' skills is a critical part of becoming fully job-ready," writes Kathleen Mullaney, VP of careers at Udacity, in a blog post announcing the news. "It is these strategies and techniques that often differentiate one job candidate from another when it comes to determining who ultimately gets hired."
Udacity is not Google's only online learning partner. Earlier this year, Google partnered with Coursera to launch the Google IT Support Professional Certificate Specialization and offered scholarships to 10,000 students. This multi-course certification is open to anyone, regardless of their intent to work at Google, though it's not free. On the flip side, Google has developed Udacity courses on developer skills for Google's Android operating system, also for a tuition fee, which directly bolster its talent pipeline.
