No matter where you are in your career, developing your skills is a surefire way to set yourself up for success. Fortunately, learning opportunities are more widespread and accessible than ever before—but how do you decide what’s right for you? We reached out to a skills and learning expert to find out.
Information Strategy & Experience
Christy Confetti Higgins is a cybrarian who leads Oracle’s Digital Information Strategy and Experience team, overseeing our Virtual Library, research services, content strategy, internal user experience, and more. With 25 years of expertise under her belt, she’s offering a practical guide to skill development and continuous learning that you can use to level up your career.
Benefits of focusing on your skills
The nature of work is constantly changing, especially in industries like technology. New skills pop up all the time, and existing ones evolve rapidly. Evaluating your current skills and knowledge and finding ways to continuously improve is key to helping you survive—and thrive—in your career. Christy approaches skill development by encouraging a mindset of continuous learning and growth.
“At Oracle, we believe in always being curious and building knowledge to become more efficient, effective, and problem-solve for today and grow your skills for the future” she says. “We want you to learn something new every day, be your best, and take your skills to the next level.”
Who is it for?
Skill development is often framed as a strategy for early-career professionals to kickstart their careers. While it’s true that building expertise is incredibly valuable for newcomers, Christy emphasizes that you can benefit from it at any stage.
“Being curious, a continuous learner, and having a growth mindset to always be seeking and sharing knowledge is something for everyone.”
Melissa Nicholas, our global diversity recruiting lead, notes that skill development is a major asset from a hiring perspective.
“Not only do you get a new skill that may be essential for the role, but it also shows the hiring manager your bias for action and ability to learn something new!”
Making a learning plan
Developing your skills is a highly individualized experience. With countless avenues available to you, it can be daunting to find options that match your interests, lifestyle, and current skillset. That’s why Christy is sharing how to make and implement a skill development plan with actionable steps and defined timelines to build the skills you need.
Step one: Explore
“Explore all the different ways to develop—articles, books, classes, mentors, live events, shadowing, informational interviews, employee resource groups, and more,” Christy explains. “Be creative and learn the way you learn best. And, talk to your manager about your learning goals so they can help identify learning opportunities for you.”
Recruiting Programs Lead
Melissa suggests making a career plan if you haven’t already. What do you want your professional life to look like? Consider your ideal industry, flexibility, community, management style, and culture. Once you’ve established where you want to work, review relevant job descriptions to get a better understanding of what the requirements are. Network with recruiters and hiring managers to find out what they’re looking for, and share your resume for feedback. This will give you a clearer picture of your strengths and skill gaps.
Step two: Integrate
Balancing day-to-day workload with new learning can be challenging for many professionals, so Christy and her team strive to make it as easy as possible for you to learn while you work.
“I recommend integrating learning into your day so you can build your knowledge, perform your best, and prepare for future opportunities,” she says.
One way to do this is to schedule time on your calendar to focus on learning. Alternatively, you can set up notifications either in email or Slack to have the information you care about pushed at you. This can save you time when looking for knowledge or learning, as the content stays front and center for you to access at your convenience.
Step three: Learn
Christy recommends these key strategies to help you personalize your learning and get the most out of your skill development experience.
Learn from experiences
“Learn while doing by looking for things you haven’t done before—from volunteering for a new task to taking on a challenging new assignment or project. Talk with your manager about the skills you want to grow so they can help identify new experiences.”
Learn from people
“Everyone around you is a great resource. You can learn from your team, manager, employee resource groups, mentors, and colleagues across the company. Have a good idea of what you want to learn so you can share your goals and get better guidance.”
Christy suggests scheduling conversations with colleagues who are doing the type of work that interests you. Learn about the area they work in, what they do, and what their experience has been like. They can provide valuable professional insight and even recommend even potential career paths for you.
Learn from resources
It’s important to know where to go quickly for your learning needs. For Oracle employees, Christy points to our Learning at Oracle website as an excellent starting point. There, employees can find information and resources to advance their knowledge of our business, strategy, and products, while growing business, leadership, technical, and sales skills. It’s a treasure trove of learning opportunities, with instructor-led and self-paced classes, labs, and product training and certifications.
Our Virtual Library contains books, videos, articles, reports, and more—making it a popular way to learn anytime, anywhere. In fact, 83% of Oracle employees today leverage at least one Virtual Library resource.
“Be sure to ask your manager and colleagues about additional learning opportunities specific for your role and line of business,” Christy adds.
Free training at Oracle
Skill development at Oracle isn’t just for employees. Our Learning Explorer program offers free entry-level training courses and accreditation for Oracle’s entire product portfolio—and it’s open to everyone! Through expert-led digital classes and hands-on labs, you can build essential IT skills across OCI, AI, machine learning, and more.
“Learning about Oracle products through Oracle University and receiving certifications is a key way of staying smart about our products and solutions,” Christy tells us. Don’t miss the free certification for OCI that is running through August 31, 2023!
The Oracle Dev Gym strengthens developer skills through fun challenges and active learning. Our free classes, quizzes, and workouts are designed to sharpen expertise in areas such as SQL, PL/SQL, and database design.
By taking the time to recognize your potential and making self-improvement a priority, you’re investing in your future. Though your learning journey is defined by you, having support can make all the difference.
“We are focused on delivering exceptional content and experiences to help people get the information they need to do their jobs, learn, and innovate while driving their success and Oracle’s success.”
Do you want to grow valuable skills that keep you ahead of the curve? Oracle’s learning and development opportunities empower people to thrive at every career stage. Explore our open roles today.