Sometimes knowing which Office computer courses will truly help with your job search can be a bit confusing.  Especially if you are looking to move into a new job category where you've never worked before.

To help with this decision, GS has created a "GS Course Selection Map by Job Type."  Here, you can easily know where to focus your learning journey.  To create this map, GS researched which jobs were currently the most in-demand jobs and reviewed the computer skills per posting.  Then, in addition to this, GS has been fortunate to have worked in many of these roles or to know someone who has been there.

The result is a quick 1-page mapping that can help with targeting a new career, make a switch or move up the ranks into a different role.  Coming next, the GS Map will be extended to also add-in more advanced online Instructor-led Courses so be sure to check this resource out again soon.

There's no doubt that over time I've been a bit biased about whether it's best to learn software with a trainer or on your own.  I think this is just because of circumstance.  Having been so lucky, though not really knowing it at the time, to be able to have access to a computer and software at such an early time, trainer-led courses were not readily available.

Learning on my own naturally evolved.  But, now as I'm here so many years later, and after checking out quite a few "just watch" online training sessions, I've landed in the opposite position.  Software has grown and grown, and continues to, as software development companies use their abilities to wow and entertain with what's possible, while this "fun stuff" doesn't really translate into the working world.  But it is cool!

What does keep the wheels turning are the folks who embrace and perfect the most useful skills.  Trying to be this type of software user on your own can be a long haul.  That's exactly why my focus as a software trainer, often referred to more as a "teacher", has led me back to a live Instructor platform.  The added layer of learners having the option to ask a question and receive an answer from a trainer at the same time they are absorbing new skills really is empowering after all!

It's interesting and very true.  There really are three fundamental topics that are often overlooked, or skipped, by folks who choose to learn Word, Excel and PowerPoint software on their own basically winging it as they go.

These are:

1. In Word, it's the editing purpose of Show/Hide Codes
2. In Excel, it's how Relative vs. Absolute Cell References work
3. In PowerPoint, it's the purpose of the Master slide view

When these very important basics are skipped over, they result in creating more work instead of less in Word, errors that are often missed in Excel calculations, and irritating surprises in PowerPoint, when least expected, like font size being messed up right in the middle of a presentation.

Join GS in an All-in-One online Instructor-led course and empower yourself with these most valuable, and often overlooked skills to not only save time, but more importantly, improve your success with applying software in the workplace, at school or at home.

Here we go again, at least in the London, Ontario area.  The latest variant of the pandemic virus is running amok which means more remote online training.  Not that I'm complaining, it's my main area of focus right now.  But it's not just because it's health-driven.  It's also because it just makes sense.

Maybe it's not for everyone and that's okay.  Not everything is ever for everyone.  But for many, this option means not only staying healthy and safe from illness, it can also mean just being more practical with how time is used.

Why want to shovel the snow out of the laneway just to drive from your computer job at home to the same computer job on site?  The reality is that this compulsion for employers to have their staff on site is born somewhat out of "trust."  For truly professional  workers, the issue of trust should not be on the table.  If an employer has done their due diligence to hire the best, then trusting them to "do the job" shouldn't matter.

In the long run, it's in most of us to be honest and forthright in a job and not dishonest.  And how wonderful is it that we now have the tools and the ability to work this way.  Just think of how many lives were made better because they didn't have to venture into crowded buildings or ride packed buses, trains and planes?

Of course we will never really know for sure what the actual benefit of remote work has been in such a trying time, it's a pretty sure bet to say that work from home options have been bit of a miracle.  The businesses that were able to pivot quite literally over night and the staff who hung in there need to be congratulated and celebrated and this likely shuffle back to remote, this time around, should be a breeze!

Almost there!  My newly refreshed training program is just getting the finishing touches.  It's been an interesting journey too.  The challenge I gave myself was this:  find a better way to help folks gain technical skills online and get them fast.

To do this, it first meant really taking a long hard look at what skills are both needed and used the most.  After literally reviewing and documenting the software features I've used the most in my many, many years of being an MS Office power-user (yep, not bragging - it's just the truth) and a pattern evolved.

Across the three main and popular software programs - Word, Excel and PowerPoint - there is a set of techniques that are universal like the basics of copy, paste, cut onto spellcheck, page numbering and print set-up.   Then, as I stood back and considered what's used the most in each of these three applications, while at the same time considering the best way to experience these software programs, it all came together.

In the end, the answer to the quest was that it wasn't really necessary to have an introductory level and then an intermediate level of training.  What made better sense was to ensure that the basics were included to lay down the foundations and then layer onto these, the most used and needed features from each program.

Admittedly, it did take longer than anticipated but I believe that the result will deliver and fulfill this important gap in the workplace, the educational spaces as well as how software can be useful at home.  Now, it's time to really get moving to share this truly revolutionary way to learn and apply computer skills.  

The struggle is real.  The way in which we live, work and learn is undergoing a tremendous upheaval impacting all of us in many ways.  But it's not all bad.  How we use our residences, how we make money, and how we gain new skills and knowledge will forever be undergoing adjustment.  What's most important is that we strive to keep up with the many world changes surrounding all of us all of the time.

Our living spaces will adapt again and how we construct our residences will shift back to being more divided than open to provide not only privacy to work from home but also the ability to quarantine.  Our work styles and work location options will finally become more flexible with less placing of people inside pigeon-holed cubicles offering better use of time instead of wasting time for travelling to work and back home again.  Plus, and my personal favourite, is how we learn will transform both in terms of where, classroom vs. virtual or outdoors, and our options for consuming new knowledge can become a mix instead of following often singular, less creative traditional paths just because that's the way it's always been done.

Although it may seem some days like these transitions are difficult and challenging, and it's true, they are, since change can be tiring, but they can also provide amazing results.  Adapt, evolve and transform.  The next steps you take can be awesome if you make the choice to change and not try to stand still.