The Institute offers members a range of benefits, with the My Career platform — available to Individual Members — being one of the newest. The platform itself can be easily accessed from the dashboard when you log in to the Chartered Institute website, so you do not need to remember any additional passwords.
On first accessing the platform, you arrive at a dashboard page, showing the main areas of the site. At the top, you will find a menu of five options
- My Dashboard – the home page
- My Career – containing career assessments, each lasting 10-15 minutes and gives you an insight into your personality and personal attributes. You can print or save the results
- My Tools - Some useful tools include a CV builder, cover letter builder, interview simulator, and some assessment centre activities
- My Learning – contains a vast array of eLearning courses and resources, covering many different skills
- My Jobs – for job searching and business networking
The area I have been exploring and using the most has been the My Learning area.
You will find lots of great eLearning resources available. Although there is a search bar at the top, you will find that on the left-hand side everything has been categorised for you, into 16 'learning paths', each of which opens to show you the sub-headings. Clicking on of there will bring up a list of all the resources covering this area.
If you hover over one of these resources, you will see a short description, along with an icon telling you the type of resources (e.g. video, article, podcast, etc), an indication of how long it will take – usually 5-15 minutes. This means that everything is bitesize and allows you to dip in when you have a few minutes spare. You can also add resources to your favourites list, so you can easily come back to them later.
If you want to focus on a specific skill or area, then further down the left-hand side of the page you will see the Topics section. Again, all the resources have been put into categories. I found this to be much more focused; for example, I chose 'Presentation Skills' as a topic, which brought up 25 resources for me to look through. You do not have to complete everything in one go, as the system keeps track of everything you access under the 'My Progress' tab. This will list all the resources you have accessed, as well as how far you have progressed with each item; so you can click and pick up back where you left off, without needing to waste time repeating what you have already done.
It was easy to find resources and I was impressed with the number and range of recourses on offer. In a 30 minutes break I was able to complete several activities in the topic area of 'Working remotely', so this suits the little and often approach to learning. With so many topics to choose from there really is something for everyone, no matter your job role or how much experience you have. But this is more than just an eLearning platform, the tools and assessment available are a great benefit. I tried out the CV builder tool and the result looked clear, professional, and better than many of the CVs that land in my inbox. Whether you are looking for a new role, seeking promotion within your current organisation, or simply want to improve your skillset, you will be able to find something here for you.