Returning to education as an adult is a weighty decision. Whatever your situation, you will soon see why online executive education serves as a catalyst for professional success. Our professional and personal lives include certain indispensable steps, such as returning to work after a break, or promotion to a supervisory position. As a result, regardless of whether you are currently active or out of the job market, you will have to acclimatise to working with new colleagues or in a completely new sphere of activity. Despite the seeming challenges, our desire for change is actually often our most powerful urge. So if you are keen to learn or are seeking stimulation, stop holding yourself back from pursuing professional development or setting out to change career. But how? Are you armed with the necessary tools to confront the competition within your current company or in a new workplace? Are you up to the task?
Professional training allows a perfect transition between your current position and a new post. It allows you to assess your skills and to firmly bolster your ambitions. In gaining a new diploma, you will also build an enlarged and strategic professional network.
How can online executive education have a positive impact on your life?
You may be motivated to return to education by specific circumstances, such as:
- a long period of professional inactivity, following a move to a new country or in order to prioritise your family life;
- working towards a position requiring a qualification at master’s degree-level;
- promotion to a management position.
Returning to work and career progression can be difficult to manage. Yet, despite your doubts, they are opportunities to prove to yourself that you can do it. This goal will galvanise you and give you the courage to see your plans through.
A personal challenge
Career progression is first and foremost a personal challenge. It always seems impossible until it’s done, as Nelson Mandela said; you will be surprised by the energy you will bring to your business executive development once it is in motion.
After its successful completion, you will understand how going back to education was a challenge which has given your career new momentum or has helped you to find new personal balance.
“I believe that to progress, you must first know yourself. It is not our professional abilities that hinder us but ourselves. Knowing this has helped me to overcome certain hurdles that I was setting up myself.”
Fernando MARTIN, Head of Innovation Projects and Development
at CERBA HEALTHCARE
An ideal environment for personal development
It can be difficult to discuss your position and professional direction with colleagues without worrying about being judged. “Has he lost motivation?” “Does she want to leave the company?” “Is this a mid-life crisis?” It is natural to worry about not receiving enough support or assistance. According to an Opinion Way survey for EDHEC Online, 52% of managers and young professionals fear that they will be unable to succeed when studying on their own.
EDHEC also offers a 100% Online Manager Programme, a professional training course which advantageously combines personalised sessions, individual and group coaching, and group work.
Set high standards
You are preparing to progress professionally. To achieve this, you must set your priorities and identify your desired outcomes: balancing the personal and the professional in your life, embarking on a new professional experience, returning to activity after a break in your career, or taking on a management role. But are you in a strong position from which to deal with employers?
A diploma course, EDHEC’s Online Management Development Programme equips you with the means to set high standards by improving your professional profile. You will receive a qualification equivalent to a master’s degree. This will be strong motivation for your employer to grant you the independence you are looking for when it comes to planning your studies. Furthermore, 100% online distance learning classes are a good way of learning at your own pace, during your free time.
How can executive education reinvigorate your career?
Strengthen your abilities and improve your reputation
At any stage in your career, you can rely on your qualifications. But do they correspond to your current professional activities? Have you taken your education as far as you planned to during your studies?
Skills assessments and the validation of professional experience are major concerns for employees and executives. In numerous cases, professional training can be a means of restarting your learning in order to:
- strengthen your credentials for a position;
- successfully navigate “horizontal” career growth, e.g., a move from the legal to the financial department;
- progress to a management post in which you will be supervising Millennials
According to Opinion Way’s survey for EDHEC Online, management is the top training priority for 38% of professionals. With teaching based on practical application and personal development, a diploma course is sure to increase your confidence in the management arena.
“To help you rediscover meaning in your work, become an actor of change, and find a better fit between who you are and what you do.”
Delphine Riant, professional coach at Cap Cohérence.
A new professional network for accelerated hiring
For senior executive positions, co-optation and recommendations play a role in 50% of hires, according to a 2018 APEC study. The real advantage of professional training is to be found in the network of executives which you will encounter on any course. Your fellow learners form the core of this network of professionals and (potentially) future employers. EDHEC Alumni membership numbers close to 50,000 professionals working all over the world.
Nearly 4 out of 10 successful candidates were connections or recommendations.
This is more common in small businesses (43%) than in large businesses (32%), and for senior executives (50%) than for those under 30 (34%).
Source: APEC, Sourcing Executives 2018; June 2018
Advancing in your career or going back to education are among the greatest challenges which you will face professionally. Professional training creates the right environment for you to gain confidence, put your knowledge into practice, and become more comfortable with managerial positions. This will allow you to set higher standards for your choice of position and your salary, without having to overturn your well-organised life. Leave any doubts about your leadership qualities behind!
Are our management training programmes for you? Take the test here: is this a good fit for me?
*photo Lonely Planet for Unsplash
