Don't Miss Your Chance to Take the 10 Most Popular Courses of the Year

As the Great Reshuffle slows, a new era may be dawning: a breakthrough that brings upskilling culture and career development centre-stage with professionals getting more serious about skill building.

The pandemic accelerated change across industries, and as a result, skills to do a job today have changed even compared to a few years ago. Professionals see the profound changes and opportunities and are responding by learning new skills to future-proof their careers and are ready to learn new skills to meet the moment.

Have we reached, as Forbes has dubbed it, the 'reskilling revolution'?

If the energy we’re seeing from the LinkedIn Learning community is any sign, the answer is a resounding "yes". Globally, 7.3 million learners watched the most popular LinkedIn Learning courses of the year (nearly double the audience from last year!).

In Singapore learners are building up their skills across a range of areas. Here's what they focused on:

●  The #1 most popular course was Excel Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365) as people and organisations brushed up on their data management skills to be ready to wrestle with spreadsheets with ease
●  Learners leaned into improving communication skills with courses like Communicating with Confidence, Expert Tips for Answering Common Interview Questions and Speaking Confidently and Effectively. Some are brushing up on their presentation skills as they head to the office more frequently, while for others it may be preparing themselves to dip their toe in the job market
●   Hard skill courses in programming, particularly Python, continued to feature on the list indicating that these technology skills are still in high demand

From adopting new soft skills to exploring ways to be a more impactful team member, the most popular courses reflect the steadfast growth mindset of the Singaporean LinkedIn community to future proof themselves for the future of work. Plus don’t miss your chance to take the top 10 most popular courses of the year for free until 31 August, 2022.

What you’ll learn:

1. Excel Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365) with Dennis Taylor

We have a lot of data at our fingertips these days. Being spreadsheet savvy can save you time and breathe new life into your data. Excel expert Dennis Taylor leads you through learning basic Excel skills such as organising data and performing calculations with simple functions, then introduces intermediate skills like building charts, PivotTables, and more.

2. Project Management Foundations with Bonnie Biafore

What you’ll learn: We all have projects to manage – from our personal to-do lists to large-scale corporate projects. Regardless of the scope of work, Bonnie Biafore will teach you the fundamentals of project management such as establishing clear project goals and objectives, meeting deadlines, and closing out projects. Sprinkled throughout the course are tips on how to communicate effectively with your project team.

3. Speaking Confidently and Effectively with Pete Mockaitis

What you’ll learn: Adapted from the podcast How to Be Awesome at Your Job, Pete Mockaitis is joined by professional speaker Diane DiResta to discuss tips and tricks for crafting impactful and informative presentations around what’s important to the audience. The conversation touches on strategies such as shifting your focus away from yourself to gain confidence, using body language and tone to deliver consistent messaging, and crafting a plan to recover from a worst-case scenario incident.

4. Strategic Thinking with Dorie Clark

People may joke about 4D chess, but having the ability to think strategically in both space and time puts you at an advantage that will help you move forward – and up – in your career. In this course, Dorie Clark will teach you how to embrace a strategic mindset, how learning from the past can shape your vision of the future, how to be detailed in your strategic thinking, and how to share this skill with your team.

5. Power BI Essential Training with Gini von Courter

What you’ll learn: Data is only as valuable as the insights it offers. Put your data to work with this course on how to use Power BI, the business analytics tools that allow you to create and share impactful visualisations with others in your organisation. In this course, Gini von Courter explains how to import data, create visualisations, and arrange those visualisations into reports. You will also learn how to use Power BI Mobile and how to use the data modelling capabilities in Power BI Desktop.

6. Learning Python with Joe Marini

If you want to pick up one programming language, Python is it! This versatile, easy-to-learn, object-oriented language is used across many industries and in applications such as software engineering, AI, machine learning, and mobile app development. Developer Joe Marini unpacks basic Python syntax and shares an example of how to construct and run a simple Python program. You will also learn to work with dates and times, read and write files, and retrieve and parse HTML, JSON, and XML data from the web.

7. Critical Thinking for Better Judgement and Decision-Making with Becki Saltzman

The sheer pace of change and volume of information we encounter each day means many of us rely on biases and rule of thumb to make decisions. This course aims to break outmoded thinking to use objective and rational analysis to guide wise decision making. With an organisational focus, the course teaches skills that will improve how your team innovates, tackles challenges and navigates change.

8. Communicating with Confidence with Jeff Ansell

What you’ll learn: Even the most gifted communicators can struggle with confidence, and confident individuals can find clear communication difficult. In this course, Jeff Ansell guides you through developing and honing this vital business skill. Topics covered include: how to organize your thoughts, how to use body and language to better express ideas, and how to overcome anxiety.

9. Design Thinking: Understanding the Process with Chris Nodder

Design thinking can help you save time and deliver more creative solutions to meet customer demands - and when done right it can take organisations towards more user-centred design techniques. This course explains how design thinking sits alongside product development, as it steps through each stage of the process - from understanding the problem, conceptualising the solution, development and finally release.

10. Digital Marketing Foundations with Brad Batesole

Digital marketing is constantly changing. Platforms come and go, trends ebb and flow, and then the next thing comes along. In this course, instructor Brad Batesole gives an overview of the building blocks of online marketing, then guides you through how to define your value proposition, identify your target market, and establish your goals and KPIs.

11. Critical Thinking with Mike Figliuolo

Developing the ability to think reflectively and address root-cause issues will make you a better decision-maker and a more reliable resource within your organisation. Leadership trainer and expert Mike Figliuolo outlines a series of techniques to help you develop your critical thinking skills by learning how to define the problem you’re trying to solve. Mike will then teach you a number of critical thinking methodologies that you can employ to better work through problems. He also provides guidance on how to develop this skill across your whole team.

12. How to Be Both Assertive and Likable with American Negotiation Institute Licensor , Kwame Christian

For many of us heading back into the office more often, brushing up on our interpersonal communications might be needed. This course is adapted from the American Negotiation Institute podcast Negotiate Anything and in it Kwame Chrsitian demonstrates how to encourage rapport while remaining assertive and effective. From staying firm at the negotiation table to quickly building strong, productive relationships this course is vital for those feeling a bit rusty to skilled negotiators looking to take it to the new level.

13. Interpersonal Communication with Dorie Clark

Many of us are seeing new faces around the in-person or virtual workplace. Maybe you're a new face on the team! Dorie Clark’s course will help you navigate the communication side of these new interpersonal relationships. She offers advice and techniques for dealing with complex and nuanced situations like interruptions, receiving critical feedback, and communicating across cultures.

14. Communication Foundations with Brenda Bailey-Hughes and Tatiana Kolovou

Clear communication is essential to career success. In this course, Brenda Bailey-Hughes and Tatiana Kolovou guide you through learning how to communicate more effectively in meetings, email messages, pitches, and presentations. You’ll learn about the four building blocks of communication – people, message, context, and listening – and how to apply them in a variety of professional circumstances.

15. Agile Foundations with Doug Rose

An agile mindset prepares your team to respond well to whatever comes their way. Doug Rose leads you through the fundamentals of building an agile team. You’ll learn about the values and principles covered in the agile manifesto, as well as how to enhance communication with user stories and cross-functional teams. Doug also provides exercises that can help boost your team's agility and productivity.

16.  Excel: VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP for Beginners with Jess Stratton

Time savings using Excel’s new look up functions isn’t just for power users and spreadsheet svengalis! Everyone can master Excel’s most powerful functions in a few steps once Jess Stratton has walked you through them. Learn how to write error-proof formulas and supercharge your spreadsheet skills in this mini course.

17.  SQL Essential Training with Bill Weinman

Database wrangling is a valuable skill for anyone working in tech, and for that you need to know the most common database language: SQL. Tech advocate and programming expert Bill Weinman teaches the major features of SQL using SQLiteStudio, an intuitive and accessible database management software. You’ll learn fundamentals such as creating tables, defining relationships, and manipulating strings, numbers, and dates. Also included in the final chapter is a real-world example of building a simple application using SQL.

18.  Expert Tips for Answering Common Interview Questions with Jenny Foss, Linda Raynier, LinkedIn Learning Instructors

No matter the job, nearly every interviewer will ask about your strengths and weaknesses, your leadership style, and how you acquit yourself in a professional setting. Yet for many of us these are the curliest questions during any hiring process. These bite-sized videos offer expert tips on how to confidently respond, as well as how to negotiate your salary and ace your next job interview. Whether it’s your first job interview in a few years or you’re in the middle of a job hunt, these sessions are well worth it for anyone looking to brush up on their interviewing techniques.

19.  Digital Transformation with Peter High

The phrase “digital transformation” is often repeated, but what exactly does it mean? This course goes beyond defining the term to understanding the full implications of adopting digital processing, and the risks in ignoring it. This engaging course examines the different stages of digital maturity, points to real world examples, and finally equips learners with a strategic digital transformation plan for their own organisation.

20.  Project Management Simplified with Chris Croft

Regardless of what level, industry or type of job you have there’s no doubt you have a project that needs doing. We can all benefit from some basic project management skills. This course teaches you how to plan your projects, without creating need for new tools or extra overhead, manage resources, evaluate progress, and ultimately deliver on time and on budget.

Plus check out the top 20 most popular courses on LinkedIn Learning globally, for free until 31 August 2022.