Using YouTube Tutorials to Update in Tech!
by Carol Fishman Cohen
The tech update is one of the biggest hurdles of career reentry. To meet the challenge we need a FEARLESS attitude. For inspiration, read how one of our iRelaunch team members pushed her fear to the side and became the producer of our Webex virtual coaching groups with little tech background and no prior knowledge of the software.
Beyond our newfound attitude, we need a working knowledge of Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and basic office management software to re-integrate smoothly at most employers. Great resources for tech updating include online tech courses found at sites such as Lynda.com, Coursera.org, or Udemy.com and Community Education courses. An ad in the local high school newsletter can produce a teenager eager for a part-time tech updating job. But the most powerful tech updating tool of all are video tutorials on YouTube. Professionals returning to work after a career break swear by it, and I use it myself, years after my return to work, when I am dealing with a new tech challenge.
You will laugh, but I did all of my pre-career-break financial modeling using Lotus 123 (hyperlinked here for those too young to have heard of it). Learning Excel was not that hard - a lot of the commands were similar - but I still had to master it. Since I relaunched my career in 2001, before YouTube was invented, I did not have this critical tool at my disposal. But if I was relaunching now, and needed to know "What's the command to freeze columns on a spreadsheet?" or "How do you insert a comment into a cell?" it would be YouTube to the rescue.
YouTube is even more useful for learning PowerPoint. Initially, I had a tougher time with PowerPoint than with Excel. Had I known I could consult YouTube tutorials on importing Excel graphs and animating slide features, I might have felt less panicky. A tip for PowerPoint newbies who are already back on the job is to find slides in a deck a colleague created that display data and text the way you would like. Ask the colleague for permission to repopulate their data or text with your own and use in your presentation.
For those of us returning from career break who are struggling with that crucial tech update, thank YouTube for giving us free access to the video tutorial!
Carol Fishman Cohen is a globally recognized expert on career-reentry strategy. She is co-author of Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-Home Moms Who Want to Return to Work and co-founder of iRelaunch (www.iRelaunch.com), the leading and most comprehensive career reentry resource for employers, individuals, universities, and professional organizations. Carol is a past presenter at the NMSN Military Spouse Career Summit and the MOAA Spouse Symposium. iRelaunch programs and presentations have reached 15,000 people since 2006. Contact: [email protected].
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