Learning Is Forever: Thoughts on learning and other stuff...

In my job, I manage professional development programs for US employees.  Given current market conditions, I'm frequently asked about career development opportunities, and, as I was responding to the latest request, I decided to share with a wider audience some of my thoughts.

Most of the links in this post will be Sun internal links, so if you're reading this and you're not a Sun employee, I apologize up front for the inaccessibility of the links.  I hope you'll still get something out of the content though.

First thing's first - what do you mean by "career development" or "career resiliency?"  Dawn Mular posted about ITIL and Career Resiliency, and she outlined her strategy around career resiliency.  You need to do the same thing - defining career resiliency will help you decide what endeavors are most appropriate for your situation. 

If you need help doing that, check out the HR Career Services site - although the resource centers are no longer on campus (at least at Broomfield), the web site still has a great deal of information and usable worksheets.  Of particular value are the worksheets under Know Yourself, the PDF files under Know Your Environment, and the section called Create a Career Action Plan.  Know Yourself and Know Your Environment can help you determine your priorities and identify your growth opportunities (some people call these your "weaknesses").

Once you know what career resiliency means, look for opportunities to grow your skills.  You're probably thinking "that's pretty obvious - can you help me out a little more than that?"  Sure!  There's a myriad of free learning opportunities if you look around.  Here are some that I found:

• Women@Sun held a leadership series that covered a variety of topics around changes, career management and professional development.  MP3 and Presentation material are available for each presentation on the Women@Sun collab site:
• Life in Interesting Times - with Karie Willyerd
• Creating Your Personal Brand - with Karen Rohde
• What a Personal Board of Director Can Do For You - with Christine Bucklin
• Presenting Yourself in Various Cultures - with Lin Lee and Cindy Reese
• Sun Learning Services provides free access to web-based courses, all available through Sun's Learning Management System.  Although these classes are not specifically career management topics, they do provide skills that are both necessary for any career and transferable regardless of where someone is working or what he or she is doing:
  
• Thinking Strategically
• Preparing for Change
• Defining Emotional Intelligence
• Emotional Intelligence at Work
  
• The Fundamentals of Effective Thinking
• Views on Organizational Change
• Another resource that I absolutely love (and I don't think enough people know about it) is Books 24x7 - accessible through Sun's Digital Libraries.  If you're okay with saving lots of money by accessing books for free and reading them online, you may find the following books interesting:
  
• Resilience at Work: How to Succeed No Matter What Life Throws at You - by Salvatore R. Maddi and Deborah M. Khoshaba
• Managing Your Career for Dummies - by Max Messmer  (although some people may find the For Dummies series insulting, it provides a no-nonsense approach to career management)
• Career Development - by Tricia Jackson
• Business Book Reviews is also available through Sun's Digital Libraries (free for Sun employees) and contains short (8 pages) reviews of top business books.  Some reviews of interest are:
• The Change Cycle - by Ann Salerno and Lillie Brock
• The Connect Effect: Building Strong Personal, Professional and Virtual Networks - by Michael Dulworth
• How to Sell Yourself: Using Leadership, Likability and Luck to Succeed - by Arch Lustberg
• Outside of Sun, there are a even more opportunities to learn about career resiliency and develop career-long skills.  Googling "career resilience" and "career management" turned up some of the items below.  I also like to check out things like YouTube and other blogs to see what free stuff people are offering to promote their current work - sometimes it pays off!
  
• American Management Association offers free webcasts and records them for later playback.  Some of their webcasts do have a registration cost, so just be sure of which one you're selecting.  Some free ones include: 
  
• Network Your Way to Success: Tips and Techniques
• Emotional Intelligence: A Powerful Tool for Effective Management
• Agility and Resilience in the Face of Continuous Change
• Who's Got Your Back: Building Deep, Trusting Relationships that Create Success

• AMA Edgewise provides podcasts on various topics.  You can view their site for a complete list of podcasts.
• Free Management Library is an awesome resource for just about any job-related topic.  The Career Development section is located at http://www.managementhelp.org/career/career.htm but be sure to check out the home page as well.
• An interesting article turned up on How to Fireproof Your Career: Five Strategies for Worklife Survival
• And YouTube didn't disappoint!  Brian Moffit provides a video on Good Work NOW! #8: Career Resilience - focusing on the concepts of career resilience and providing ten tips for career resilience.

Obviously, if you have some money to work with, there are a ton of workshops, seminars, webinars, etc. that you might attend.  Free is good, though, and there are plenty of free resources out there.  So what other resources are out there?  What are you using to manage your career?  There's a whole list on this page that you can take advantage of, too!