One of the things you can do for yourself is to learn how to market yourself. Even a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) needs to have some career development skills and understand how to interact with people in order to get a job. Developing career skills that can help you land the job — and then keep it — are an essential part of finding success. If you are looking for free and effective help with your career development, here are 25 open courseware classes that can help you improve the chances that you will get a job:

Nursing

Brush up on your knowledge of nursing, and learn to understand some of the issues facing nurses today. This knowledge could help you better sell yourself as a knowledgeable and capable CNA.

Health Assessment and Promotion: This course from UMass Boston can help you learn how to provide health assessment services and better understand the nursing process. Focuses on assessing the health of patients across the lifespan. Caring in Hospitals: Learn about the type of care offered by different hospitals from The Open University. Get a better look at the different roles played by those who work in hospitals, and learn how you can integrate yourself. Medical Terminology: The College of Eastern Utah provides you with a working knowledge of the different terms that are used in medicine, and helps you understand their use. Valuable if you want to showcase your knowledge of the medical profession. The Human Body: This open courseware collection from Harvard University’s medical school provides a helpful look at how the human body is put together, and provides you with basic knowledge of anatomy. Health: Yale’s open courseware collection offers you a chance to address health issues and understand the workings of diseases, epidemics and public health concerns.

Communication

One of the most important things you can do as a CNA is to be able to communicate effectively. But before you get the job, you have to be able to show your interviewer your communication skills. Enhance your ability to communicate your ideas and present yourself with a little help from some open courseware.

Business Communications in the Age of Spin: While it may seem pointless to learn about business communications, the fact of the matter is that a CNA needs to understand how business works — since the medical profession includes business. What is Good Writing?: Showcasing your “soft skills” can make you more attractive. Learn to write well and express yourself with the written word. Dynamic Leadership: Improvisation in Business: This course from MIT can help you learn how to improvise smoothly and enhance your leadership skills — which can be helpful if you plan to advance in your career. Language and Communication: Foundations: Western Governors University offers a course in the fundamentals of language and communication.

Time Management and Productivity

As a CNA, you need to learn how to manage your time. You can get a better job, and do better at your current job, if you learn a little bit about time management and about increasing your productivity.

Time Management Exercise: This helpful and informative course from Notre Dame provides you with insight into how you can better manage your time and use your time more efficiently. Time Management: This presentation can help you learn more about better time management. Crisis Management and Emergency Preparedness: Harvard can help you get a grip on what needs to happen during an emergency, and how you can perform better during a crisis situation. Strategic view of performance: Learn about management strategy and improving productivity. Having this knowledge can help you position yourself as you search for a job as a CNA.

Behavior

Understanding human behavior can not only help you as a CNA, but it can also provide you with insight into how you can do better in your interview, and what you need to do in order to behave in such a way as to connect with others.

Establishing Relationships with Other Professionals: Networking, and the relationships you develop with others, can be a big part of whether or not you can find a job. This course can help you learn how to connect with others. Emotional Intelligence: Learn about being better connected to others on an emotional level. Recognize other emotions, and learn to adjust your own responses accordingly. Making decisions: The decision making process is an important part of life — and your career. This course can help you become more adept at decision making and display your skills to others. Eight Leader Behaviors That Increase Motivation, Morale, and Performance…And One That Won’t: This course is aimed at helping you develop better leader behaviors. Develop these, and your interviewers will notice a difference.

People

Learn about how to connect and interact with others. Your people skills can make a big difference in whether or not you get a job.

Giving and Receiving Feedback: Understanding how to give and receive effective and helpful feedback is important. And you may even have to do it in an interview! Managing Relationships: While this course focuses mainly on fundraising, it is also helpful from the standpoint that knowing how to manage resources and relationships is an important skill to have. New Media Literacies: This course helps you learn how to utilize new media. Learn how to use social media and networking to reach out to others online and find a job. Power Play: Learn about the important dynamics of power in work settings, and learn how to use them to your advantage.

Ethics

Get a good foundation in ethics and questions of “right” behavior. This can be helpful when answering questions from interviewers and letting others know that you are well-versed in appropriate behavior.