Udacity today announced a new partnership with Google that will make a number of career courses freely available to recent graduates and mid-career professionals. The free career courses, which mark a first for Udacity, will focus on helping employees improve their chances of getting a job, no matter whether that’s a first job or we are talking about a mid-career course change.
The two companies trialed this approach with the “Networking for Career Success” course, which launched in March. At the time, they made that course available to 60,000 Grow with Google scholars and it’s now part of the 12 courses Udacity and Google are launching together.
The new courses cover a wide swath of topics that range from helping you refresh your resume and write a cover letter to giving you tips for optimizing your GitHub profile and strengthening your LinkedIn Network. But there also are more technical topics, and Udacity will offer a “Data Structures and Algorithms in Python” class, as well as a course on using Swift for technical interviews.
“This next generation of talent will enter the job market possessing a diverse range of skills, but facing a lot of competition, and a rapidly-shifting hiring landscape,” writes Udacity VP of Careers Kathleen Mullaney. “They’re going to need every resource they can get to make sure they’re able to compete successfully for available roles. They are not alone in benefiting from this kind of support. Mid-career professionals pursuing career change, older workers returning to the workforce, and anyone looking ahead to a job search, will find these courses valuable as well.”
Udacity has long partnered with industry partners, so it’s no surprise the company is now working with Google again. Google itself has worked with both Udacity and its competitor Coursera over the years for launching both career-oriented courses and more technical classes that range from introductions to programming and IT skills classes to in-depth machine learning courses.
