Microsoft extends free programme of digital skills courses
- Date: 10 June, 2021
Microsoft is building on its existing digital skills initiative by providing free digital skills courses for the current ten most in-demand jobs and low-cost certifications, whilst also launching important new career-oriented services.
Microsoft has revealed that it is following up on its spectacularly successful June 2020 digital skills initiative by extending the offer for free courses and low-cost certifications through to the end of 2021. The primary aim is to help those individuals who have been directly and indirectly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The original initiative has seen more than 30 million people in 249 countries around the world gain access to digital skills via the various programmes and services.
This latest initiative follows the same principles as the first, with data used to identify the ten most in-demand jobs. These are:
- Customer service specialist
- Data analyst
- Digital marketing specialist
- Financial analyst
- Graphic designer
- IT administrator
- IT support/help desk professional
- Project manager
- Sales representative
- Software developer
Free access to learning paths and content will be available to help people develop the skills that these positions require. The initiative will incorporate both existing and new resources from LinkedIn, GitHub and Microsoft.
There are also two other significant developments for those seeking a career in technology, namely:
- Career Connector – a new online platform, focused on skill-building via Microsoft’s non-profit and learning partners, that will help place 50,000 job seekers in technology-enabled jobs in the Microsoft ecosystem over the next three years
- Career Coach - a new Teams for Education app powered by LinkedIn that will provide personalised guidance for higher-education students looking to identify their career path, grow real-world skills and build their network all in one place. Career Coach uses an AI-based skills identifier and LinkedIn integration that aligns a student’s comprehensive profile with job market trends
Finally, Microsoft sees an important role for its new Viva Learning app for Teams in fostering better skills-based training for both employers and employees. The intention is that Viva Learning will provide a central hub for learning where people can discover, share, recommend and learn from content libraries across an organisation. It will include content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, Microsoft 365 training courses , third-party content providers, learning management systems and an organisation’s own custom content.