Your resumé is the reflection of your qualifications and abilities. But the most common question while preparing a resumé is, can webinars be included in resumes? Well, let’s see!
You can, and should, include online courses and webinars on your resume or CV if it’s from a reputable supplier and presenter, especially if you can show you’ve used and have had success with what you have learned.
Here’s how you can effectively include webinars on your resume:
- Dedicated Section: Create a dedicated section for professional development, continued education, or certifications. You can title it something like “Professional Development,” “Continuing Education,” or “Certifications and Training.”
- Relevance: Include webinars that are relevant to the job you’re applying for. This shows potential employers that you are committed to staying updated in your field and have taken the initiative to expand your knowledge and skills.
- Details: For each webinar, list the title of the webinar, the organization that hosted it, and the date. If the webinar included a certification or a completion certificate, mention that as well.
- Skills Acquired: If possible, briefly describe what you learned from the webinar and how it applies to the job you’re seeking. Highlight any specific skills or knowledge gained that would be beneficial to your potential employer.
- Online Profile: If space on your resume is limited, you can include a brief mention of continuous professional development and direct employers to your LinkedIn profile or an online portfolio where you have a more comprehensive list of webinars and other professional development activities.
- Customization: Customize your resume for each job application. This includes tailoring the webinars you list to match the job description and requirements as closely as possible.
By thoughtfully including webinars on your resume, you can demonstrate your commitment to learning and staying current in your field, which can be a significant advantage in many job markets.
Should I Include Webinars On My Resume?
Yes, that is the short answer!
You’re probably here because you’ve attended some great webinars and have learned a lot from them. You’re using the skills you’ve learned to develop a new project as well.
But now you are making a career move and wondering if you should or shouldn’t add these webinars to your resumés. To help you with these questions, we have got in touch with some recruiters and asked them their reactions to seeing a CV with listed webinars.
The majority of them said that it is a subjective matter. If you’re listing some random webinars from a random, unauthorized platform, it’s going to make things worse. This is because, online education is still in the growing phase, and at times listing it in your resumés can cause a big blunder.
However, if you’re listing the legit webinars on reputed platforms, then it will surely have a positive impact on the recruiter.
How Do You List a Webinar On a Resume?
Here are some tips you can follow to list a webinar on your resume :
1. Don’t Begin Your Resume With Webinar Listings
While it is true that listing webinars can help you impress the job recruiters, they shouldn’t be put on the position on your resume. This is the most common mistake made by job candidates, especially the ones with less or no experience.
If you’ve attended a webinar and you’ve learned something that can help you in your job, you can include it under a specific section of your CV.
It should be short, well-defined, and clear. For example, you can list the webinars under the section “Professional Training”.
2. It Should Be Relevant
Let’s be very honest, if you’re listing a webinar on ancient history and archaeology while applying for a post as a graphic designer, it’s going to cause a lot of distraction. Therefore, include the things that are relevant to the job you’re applying for. Selecting the right certifications and positioning them in the correct order is the most important part of designing an effective resume.
3. Ignore the Intro Sections
Keep the listings short and confined. You shouldn’t elaborate on a low-level webinar that not even relevant to the post. It will have a very negative impact on the job recruiter. It makes the impression that the candidate is less experienced and has no capabilities that are required for the job.
So, add only what you’re going to bring to the table.
4. Demonstration the Skills You’ve Learned
Online learning today has become very easy. Anyone can enroll in a course and earn a certificate right away. However, this doesn’t guarantee that you’ve actually consumed the right content and learned something. So, it is very necessary to provide evidence that you’ve put your skills into practice.
For this, list your projects or works where you’ve applied the things you have learned through your webinars.
5. Be Ready for Being Quizzed
No matter how flattering and professional your resume seems, if you fail at the interviews, it is of no use.
You should be able to answer each and every question regarding the webinars or courses you’ve listed in your resumé. The questions can be very specific, so make sure you’re well prepared for that.
Can I Put Online Courses On My CV?
As a skillful job candidate, it’s your responsibility to help the recruitment team to reach the right conclusion. For this, you have to set yourself apart from the crowd. This is where online courses can come into play. If you include relevant online courses in your CV, that’s actually going to help you. If you’re still not convinced, here are the three biggest reasons to include high-quality and relevant online courses in your CV.
1. They Can Help In Your Interview
Recruiters use the interview process as a tool to test your true skills and capabilities that can be useful for their company. At this point, you’ve to set yourself apart from the other candidates in terms of skills, knowledge, and abilities. You have to convince the employer that you’re different from the crowd sitting outside the interview room.
The good thing is, online courses are still new. Employers don’t see many online course listings in the resumés every day. Hence, by adding relevant courses, you can show your additional skills and what makes you shine among the rest.
Adding the courses will lead you to a smooth and impactful interview. This is because the interviewer will ask you questions about the courses you’ve listed. And you have the benefit of preparing these questions in advance as the majority of these questions are very predictable.
You will be asked questions such as the following :
- What pushed you to enroll in these online courses?
- What have you learned from the course?
- Where have you applied the knowledge and skills you’ve gained from the course?
- How this course is beneficial for our company?
…and so on!
You can easily frame out such questions and prepare them in advance in order to have a successful interview.
2. It Makes You Shine Among The Rest
Online courses are a great way of showcasing your extra skills. They often convey the message that you have the abilities that can help the company in several ways. Generally, what happens is, candidates, fail to convince the employer that they have the right skills they are looking for. Your online listings can act as a guide to the employer. It gives a clear insight to the recruiter about what you have done and what can you do for their benefits.
As we already mentioned, online courses can help you set yourself apart from others. It is extremely important because the competition is touching the sky and this is forcing the employers to look for candidates with hybrid skills (a combination of skills and experience).
3. It Makes A Great First Impression
When you list the relevant online courses in your CV, it makes a great impression on the employer. This is because it shows your character and your enthusiasm to learn new things. It shows that you’re a keen learner, which is itself a positive quality to have.
Not just that, it also demonstrates your other qualities such as curiosity, self-discipline, willingness to learn, etc.
Without any fresh indicator in the CV, it becomes very difficult for an employer to judge the candidates. Degrees and qualifications are not enough to measure the capabilities of a person. There are certain other things that an employer wants to make sure of, he wants to check whether or not you’ll be able to go an extra mile for the benefit of their company.
However, this will only be impactful if you’re able to justify the things you’ve listed. Otherwise, everything will get wasted in veins.
Do Webinar Certificates Have Value?
This is again the most common question asked by the job candidates, whether or not webinar certificates are worth it? Do they hold and value or not?
As we already discussed, this is a subjective question. It would be unfair to state that all the webinar certificates hold great value because honestly, that’s not the case.
Your CV or resume is the image of your qualifications and professional experience. It shows what you can and you’re willing to do for a particular job. You can definitely enhance it by adding webinars, training, and other online courses to signify your expertise and extra skills.
However, online learning still lacks a few things. It obviously doesn’t carry the same value as a degree or a traditional certification, but it still holds great value. It can help you to bolster your passion, willingness to learn, keen interest in front of the employer. In fact, these are the qualities on the basis of a candidate is judged.
Online certificates can be a great tool for candidates with little or no previous work experience, to convince the employer. The students who apply for their first job just after finishing high school can attend and attach the webinar certificates in their resume to make a great impact on the employer.
But the platforms where you’ve attended the webinars and have taken the courses is an important deciding factor.
If your webinar certificate comes from a reputed platform, it definitely holds great value over the others. Otherwise, the certificates won’t be very impactful.
The good thing is, there are numerous reputed webinar platforms that you can access for free. There are some paid ones as well, that offer high-quality content and their certificates are totally worth showcasing. The same goes with the online courses, you should enroll for the online courses on reputed platforms only. Because they not only teach you great skills but also provides a legit and powerful certificate.
