These Online Platforms Can Boost Your Resume for Free

Improve your chances by building these skills

Andrew Ward

Now more than ever, the job market is a treacherous place. The supply of quality jobs does not match the demand for careers for new and veteran professionals. There are ways an individual can stand out by showcasing the right skills, but getting these skills sometimes costs money many job seekers can't afford. Now a rise in free, quality education has begun to bridge the education gap. If you're looking to boost your resume, consider some of these platforms.

Coding

Ruby, JavaScript, Python. Do you know any of these programming languages? If you do, or know other in-demand languages, you have a leg up on the competition. Considered by many as the must-have job skill of the future, coding is a virtual must-have on your resume. With Codecademy, you can put yourself on the track to being more in-demand in the job market -- for free.

As GonnaBe lead engineer and co-founder C.J. Windisch told Mashable last year, "We see it everywhere from statistical analysis in baseball to politics with Barack Obama's data-driven election team," Windisch says. "Understanding data at that scale requires a computer to run numbers, not a calculator. In today's big data world, that means coding."

Codecademy user Liz Beigle-Bryant offered her experience with the website as an older job seeker. "So I'm 55, and I don't have a college degree. That means I need to work out ways to foil the resume algorithms that would automatically discard my resume," she explains. "Key web coding skills such as JavaScript, jQuery, Ruby, HTML, CSS, and Python (PHP & MySQL too) helped shoot me to the head of the queue."

With over 24 million users, Codecademy is one of the most popular destinations for learning programming and markup languages. For those serious about learning a new language, consider their Code Year, which teaches the basics to JavaScript before adding HTML and CSS.

If Codecademy isn't your speed, try some of these other free courses in coding.

Languages

Learning a language can be costly. Reputable classes can run into the high hundreds of dollars per class or program. With Duolingo anyone can learn a language for free. The founders believe high-quality education should be accessible to anyone for no cost.

A 2012 census report revealed that 55 millions Americans don't speak English in the home. While some may think the United States recognizes English as the official language of the land, there actually isn't one. That means the job market, and the consumers, may not be English speakers. If you have the skill to bridge the language gap you could be in high demand. Bilingual speakers average 5-20 percent more per hour than single-language employees.

A Rosetta Stone study concluded that average annual incomes of bilingual speakers average $10,000 higher than just English speakers and 17 percent of bilingual speakers average over $100,000 per year. In the health realm, another Rosetta Stone report supported learning a language as a way to combat mental diseases like Alzheimer's. You could be benefitting yourself on various fronts by learning another language.