Leveraging Exam Review Courses for Career Transition: Unlocking New Opportunities

In 2020 and 2021, the U.S. labor market experienced a new trend where people voluntarily left their jobs. There are many reasons behind this, such as dissatisfaction in their position, untrained or bad leadership, and misaligned goals. This period in time has become known as "The Great Resignation," and led into 2022, where more than 50 million people quit their jobs.

Over time, this resignation has seen a decline as the economy has picked back up after the pandemic, and those same millions of people have changed gears and are trying to transition into new career paths that align more specifically with their personal goals. Technology advancement and software development is a big one, given the rise in popularity of social media for more than just the socialite.

In trying to make the shift from one career to another, many people have turned to various platforms to gain more valuable and transferrable skills. One avenue that most hadn't considered during the great resignation is how to prepare for transfer while still employed. One of the greatest assets that an employee has is exam review courses, which provide valuable information for those going into a specific field. In this article, we'll discuss what to consider during a career transition, how an exam review course can help you in that transition, specific soft skills you can expect to gain from them, and how to leverage the exam review course for your own career benefit.

In this blog,

1. Steps to Consider During a Career Transition

2. How Does an Exam Review Course Help You in a Career Transition?

3. What Soft Skills Will Exam Review Courses Give You?

Steps to Consider During a Career Transition

Changing careers is a drastic step, and takes a great deal of consideration, whether you're advancing in your current position, gaining new job titles within your own company, or transitioning to a new career altogether. Here are a few steps you should take in order to ensure that you're making the right decision for you.

• Consider what motivates and inspires you- When you know already that you want to transition into a new career, the where is sometimes daunting, even if you already have an idea of what you want to do. Thinking about the specifics of what motivates you to do what you do and where you get your inspiration from will help you decide what you want to do and even find specific companies that align with your own goals.
  
• List your current skills to understand the ones you need to develop- What skillsets do you already have that can help you in your new career. Are you lacking in certain soft skills like communication, or time management? Or do you need a little more development in your hard skills, such as in the use of Excel? What job requirements does your future job have?
  
• Find time for further development and the attainment of new skillsets- Taking the time now to develop a well-rounded skill set that helps you in your current job as well as your dream job will help you stay aligned with your goals and maintain a level of sanity in what is otherwise a rather chaotic period in time.
  
• Tailor your resume to each individual position you apply for- When building out your resume, take the time to research the jobs you're applying for and change the details of your resume to match each individual job listing. This helps you stand out from others, showing that you've taken the time to do your research, and follow listing guidelines. One way to stand out is to list the skills you've gained from your job experiences, rather than the job experiences themselves. New employers are more interested in what skills you bring to the company, rather than who you've worked for before.
  
• Prepare for the interviews- Take it one step further and prepare for any interview beforehand. This, again, will prove far more beneficial if you've done your research on the company you're transitioning to. Companies like to know why you're moving over, what value you'll bring to the company, and if your goals will align with the organization as a whole. Having answers prepared in a natural way will help the interview go smoothly.

How Does an Exam Review Course Help You in a Career Transition?

Making a big transition in your career is a very daunting task, but right now employees have the upper hand in the situation. Employers need workers after the Great Resignation, and employees don't have to worry about working for bad employers. There's value in the work they do, and we're learning as a group that we don't have to be with people who don't see that value.

Not only that, but we have a myriad of valuable resources to help with the change in trajectory. Exam review courses help in career transitions by:

• Certifying participants with specific skillsets- Maybe a little obvious, but still worth noting, is that exam review courses teach. They give valuable information and are usually designed for the student to learn hard skills that upskill them for their current or future job.

• Proving that the worker has specific valuable soft skills- Taking exam review courses isn't for the faint of heart. In fact, adding a course on top of the standard work and larger projects that are randomly added into their work list is a challenge that many don't welcome, and for good reason. The fact that some accomplish this mighty task proves that they've learned valuable skills along the way, such as time management, prioritization of tasks, and persistence to name a few.

• Giving the worker formal qualifications- Sometimes, the issue isn't the knowledge. Some workers spend years doing the same work, learning the same skills that they might in a formal course. Doing an exam review course, and completing the subsequent exam, doesn't necessarily teach you anything new (though that is often a perk). Instead, it gives you a formal qualification, not just a skill, which can lead to better hire rates and higher pay.

What Soft Skills Will Exam Review Courses Give You?

Something that is oftentimes overlooked by many workers is the value of soft skills and what a person with well-developed soft skills can bring to the table. Exam review courses help develop these soft skills simply as a matter of self-preservation for the person participating in the course. Here's a short list of soft skills that course attendees can expect to learn and master by the end of the course.

• Time Management- Effective time management is an essential skill learned by having to balance a myriad of course material and assignments on top of their regularly scheduled work.
  
• Communication- Learning to communicate helps students by teaching them when to ask for help, clarification, or when to delegate certain tasks to others instead of handling it all on their own.
  
• Prioritization of Tasks- Prioritization is a skill that takes time to learn but is one of the most beneficial skills to come out of exam review courses. There's a large amount of course material to get to, and learning how to balance the most important enables them to work effectively.
  
• Responsiveness- We've all been there; waiting for an email for five days, only to get a simple, "Yeah, that's okay." Responsiveness to questions via email, text, phone call, etc. is one of the most courteous skills a person can learn.
  
• Listening- There's listening to respond, and there's listening to understand, the latter of which is the preferable one. Improving your listening skills by learning to absorb the information in the course is a valuable skill to develop.
  
• Growth Mindset-The course student already proves to have a growth mindset by starting the course in the first place, but in the course, they'll be able to develop and practice the skill to a deeper degree.
  
• Persistence- Exam review courses can be a large undertaking, oftentimes requiring the student to rearrange their personal schedule, miss out on family events, and oftentimes fall short of their personal expectations. If a person has completed a course, you can be confident that they'll be persistent in their work and prove to be your advantage.
  
• Organization and Planning- These last two go hand in hand. Exam review courses require a person to be organized in their time, and their physician and mental space, oftentimes planning around their life in order to participate in each facet effectively.
  
• Adaptability and Resourcefulness- It requires them to adapt to change quickly and be resourceful in how and where they take the course at all.

Whether you're pursuing a passion project, looking for a change, or considering looking for a different job altogether, know that the decision is not a straightforward one. If you're considering a career transition, make sure that you're taking the rights steps that ensure your success. Exam review courses can play a powerful role in helping you create a life you love and a career you can be proud of. The courses can unlock opportunities that may not have been available to you with your current skillset, so consider using this too, as well as the myriad of others available to you as you make the change.

Are you ready to leverage an exam review course in your ongoing career transition? Consider partnering with the leader in engineering, architecture, and project management exam prep, School of PE!

About the Author: Anna Taylor

Anna Taylor is a freelance writer and avid researcher- a jack of all trades, but a master of none. She graduated from the University of Hawai'i with an Associates Degree in Liberal Arts because she had no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up. She has since found her love of Extended Reality and the possibilities it brings to the world, as well as gardening, cooking, and writing. Anna lives in Interior Alaska with her family.