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Context
Since the start of the Gateway to Growth project in 2019, a portion of the funding has been spent on LinkedIn Learning licences for UEA graduates. The graduates apply for a licence through GradCentral, and receive their licence free of charge to them for six weeks. At this point the licence lapses, in order to prevent the supply running out through inadvertent ‘hogging’, but it can be renewed by filling in the application form again.
We should emphasise that these graduate licenses for LinkedIn Learning are no longer available as of the end of June 2022.
Brief/Task
In order to promote greater uptake of the licences by UEA graduates, it was felt that a case study should be produced reflecting how a UEA graduate had already made use of the offer of a LinkedIn Learning licence in order to achieve career success.
Outcome
Alfie Botelho, who had worked for Gateway to Growth as a hub intern, was identified as a graduate who had made particular use of the offer on his way from graduating from the BSc Economics course to entering a graduate role with insurance brokers Marsh as a client manager. The following verbatim testimonial is Alfie’s response to questions put to him.
Testimonial
What made you decide to use LinkedIn Learning?
To upskill in a wide range of areas that my degree didn’t really prepare me for. With such a large variety of courses at my fingertips it was a great opportunity to familiarise myself with things that I had never tried my hand at or learned about before.
Which LinkedIn Learning courses have you taken up?
Advanced Excel Formulas and Functions, Online Marketing Foundations, Communicating With Confidence; I think there was one on excel charts and graphs too. There are some which I got part-way through but I can’t remember what they were.
How did you go about scheduling them around your other commitments?
That was a challenge, to be honest. I found that to get any done I had to force it in a way - commit to setting aside an amount of time at a set point in the week.
What have you learnt from these courses that has already proved useful in your job?
Though I don’t really find myself using VLOOKUP functions or anything like that in my job, I have found that learning about Excel’s functions and formulas has helped me better understand how to use Excel in general which I am doing a lot of - so it helps that I’m much handier with it now. The Communicating With Confidence course has actually helped a lot not just with presentations and communicating effectively with colleagues but also helped me work on my job interview technique.