Professional development is the process of developing your career prospects, finding new ways of doing the same thing or learning about new software, new programmes which can benefit your particular career or can be a benefit to your organisation. Professional development is something that can occur at any level and is recognised by employers and prospective employers as something fundamental in having a highly trained team member capable of dealing with the demands of clients and business requirements in the modern world.
What Are the Benefits of Professional Development?
Professional development and training will provide many benefits and opportunities to every person who pursues and actively engages with this activity, the exact benefit of the training or development taken will of course depend on the specific goals of the individual Benefits of professional development include:
- Professional development broadens your knowledge. Professional development and training opportunities can expose people to a new way of thinking, it can complement existing knowledge and it can increase their abilities in their area of expertise.
- Professional development boosts self confidence and also credibility within your chosen field. By increasing your professional abilities through training and development, self confidence in the ability to perform the job will increase as well.
- Professional development and training increases your ability to earn more within your field of expertise and also to be hired quicker and easier for new jobs. Professional development and training offers all professionals this ability to boost their earning potential as they acquire abilities in the use of new tools and attain mastery at an existing skill set. Professional training and development certifications and accreditations can often be achieved in an online capacity but can go a long way in differentiating your skillset from another in your field. Being seen as a person who takes the opportunities to upskill and learn more is also a positive.
- Professional development and training courses can provide one with the opportunity to network. Seminars, workshops and conferences are great opportunities for meeting with other professionals from the same industry.
- Professional training and development keeps individuals current, they are able to compete against newer graduates as long as they stay up to date on the progressions and movements within their fields. The best way to do this is to continue learning throughout your career, always expanding on knowledge, always updating ideas and always learning any new techniques and technologies.
- Professional development and training can always keep the door open for changes in job or profession in the future.
CPDCourses.ie is a good resource for some professional development courses currently on offer in Ireland. There are a wide range of course providers featured here from IPASS who deal with training and development for anyone in the accountancy field to CMI and the communications and Management Institute offering a wide range of management and professional courses across different levels. Courses are in areas such as Project Management, Event Management, Environmental Studies and more, classes are on a once a week basis with online classes also available. Dorset College in Dublin also offers a wide range of short-term training and development courses from Health Service Management to Digital Marketing and Social Media. For more information and a comprehensive listing of all CPD courses check out www.cpdcourses.ie.
Professionaldevlopment.ie offer a wide range of courses especially formulated to equip one with the most sought after skills in today’s marketplace ranging from courses in project management, management, training the trainer, agile courses, etc. They offer both public courses and in-company courses, and the training can be done in centre or online. They also have a wide variety of courses within each area for example in the area of Project Management they offer the PMP bridging course and exam preparation, Prince 2 both practitioner and foundation course, The Scrum Master and the CAPM course and also one day course on risk management.
The Institute of Training and Development (www.iitd.ie) has been in operation since 1969 and now boasts over 2000 members working in such diverse fields as the voluntary sector, business or education. It is concerned uniquely with human resources training and development and offers resources to trainers and organisations entering in developing their organisation and people in this domain. It includes as one of its resources a trainers learning skillnet whereby members can have access to the best CPD opportunities and also grant aided training opportunities for companies.
Other providers of CPD include NUI Galway who have a dedicated CPD Courses section on their website and ESCI (Education Support Centres Ireland) who offer CPD courses in the fields of teaching and education.