Bray's Bus Stop
Welcome to the stop on your journey where you’ll find valuable resources to enhance and improve your working world skills.
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High Priority "To Dos" in Your First Job
1.
Sign up for Work Smart, my email newsletter
What do you get when you cross cool, crazy, and happy with nerdy, corny, and cheesy? A working smart newsletter, of course.
Your emotional well-being will thank you for checking it out.
2.
Follow me on my Facebook author page and Instagram
Stay up to date with my working smart tips and updates.
3.
Develop a LinkedIn Profile
Having a LinkedIn profile will enable you to meet and network with other similarly-situated business professionals, perform important industry and topical research, build your brand, and even search for a job.
LinkedIn is the truly the place to be as a business professional – from day one until you mark your profile as “retired.” Developing and maintaining your profile will demonstrate credibility and credibility will make people interested in you —which bodes well when you need answers to questions from your manager, are looking to establish connections in your field, and if you decide to look for a new job someday.
4.
Sign Up for Glassdoor
A free website where you can learn what employees really think about the company as it includes company reviews, CEO approval ratings, salary reports, interview reviews and questions, benefits reviews, office photos and more – all shared by company employees.
Depending where you work within the company, it may an important part of your job description to learn what employees think so you can react appropriately. If not, it’s still interesting to learn what employees think about key areas of the company. Plus, if you ever consider leaving your company, it’s a great opportunity to learn what employees think about your potential future employer.
Free Writing Support
Grammarly
A free writing app that makes sure everything you type is not only correct, but also clear and easy to read. Grammarly’s algorithms flag potential issues in the text and make context-specific suggestions to help with grammar, spelling and usage, wordiness, style, punctuation, and even plagiarism.
The software explains the reasoning behind each suggestion, so you can make an informed decision about whether, and how, to correct an issue.
My staff and I use Grammarly. It’s editing features have not only made it easier to proofread our work, but makes us feel confident about presenting professional-looking documentation to peers and management. I encourage you to use it as soon as possible, especially as a new employee where you’ll take any help given.
Free Learning and Professional Development Opportunities
View free expert-led online courses and tutorials on relevant business topics. When you sign up for LinkedIn Learning’s Course Club, you get access to a selection of the most popular online courses every quarter. Recent quarterly course topics have included remote work and diversity & inclusion.
Coursera offers courses, specializations, certificates and degree programs (some of them at a cost) taught by top instructors from world-class universities and companies.
Hundreds of free courses give you access to on-demand video lectures, homework exercises and community discussion forums. Some popular course topics include marketing, finance, human resources, and accounting.
Offers approximately 160 free online courses from their learning marketplace, including everything from PowerPoint basics to learning how to code video games to increasing your influence.
I’ve had the opportunity to view a number of these free courses on all three platforms. The high-quality and relevant content led by business and academic experts will be a valuable use of your time.
Free Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) Tutorials
Microsoft offers free online tutorials for its Microsoft Office package. Click the logos below to visit some of the more popular Microsoft Office resources:
I thought I was pretty good at Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Then I watched these videos and learned that there is always something new to learn that will work to you and your company’s advantage.
Free Business-Oriented TED Talks
If you aren’t familiar with TED Talks, they are a showcase for speakers presenting great, well-formed ideas in under 18 minutes. Here are some more popular business-oriented TED Talks:
TED Talks kill two birds with one stone – they are a welcome break from the crazy world and have the ability help you improve your working world skills. I’ve really enjoyed these talks, especially as value-add lessons for employees entering their first jobs.