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Have you heard about short courses? Are you an entrepreneur, employee or job seeker who wants to acquire new skills or develop your current skills? Short courses may be for you. Find out what it is and why doing a short course is full of benefits.

Short courses

Short course: definition

Short course is a short course for adults. It usually lasts between one and three days maximum and meets a specific training objective. This professional training can be inter or intra-company. It can be used to raise awareness, inform, train in a new skill or reinforce knowledge. These training courses generally correspond to very specific profiles, wishing to improve their skills on a given subject. Short training courses rarely lead to a diploma, but some of them may lead to a certification or qualification.

Who are short courses aimed at?

Short courses are aimed at several audiences:

• Jobseekers : many entrepreneurs use their professional training account (CPF) or their unemployment benefit rights to take part in short courses. Short, but dense, training courses enable them to find a job more easily and to return to work more quickly... and why not change career paths?
• Entrepreneurs : entrepreneurs have little time for training. Following an initial training course or a classic training course (long qualification course, apprenticeship, continuing education, validation of prior learning, school with a state diploma, etc.) is not always easy when you already have a thousand and one things to manage. Entrepreneurs often prefer short training courses, which allow them to learn a specific skill set or to improve their skills in a minimum amount of time.

Employees : company directors are keen to offer short courses to their employees. These are given in a training centre over a very short period of time or directly on the company's premises. They allow a rapid increase in skills without depriving the company of its employees for a long time or repeatedly.

Have you heard about short courses? Are you an entrepreneur, employee or job seeker who wants to acquire new skills or develop your current skills? Short courses may be for you. Find out what it is and why doing a short course is full of benefits.

Vocational training

Why do a short course?

There are many advantages to short courses. There are several good reasons to look into these professional courses:

• To learn new skills or develop some of them to meet the needs of your company (for example, new managerial techniques to manage a team in difficulty, training in ecological transition, diversity in the company...).
• These training courses are practical, as they enable concrete actions to be taken within the company after the training. Trained employees can bring about change and help the company to remain successful and maintain a good brand image.
• Vocational training can also help to develop skills for promotion or change of job.
• Training to consider a career change : all short courses offer the opportunity to gain work experience. Some of them provide training in new practices, which may correspond to a different job than the one currently held by the employee.
• These courses may correspond to different individual training projects. Sometimes they are taken simply to gain personal enrichment or to prepare for future training.

How to choose a short course?

There are hundreds of short courses available... and not all of them are suitable for everyone. Here are some tips for choosing the right course for you:

• Define your objectives. Why do you need a short course?
• If you are looking to fill a business need, be sure you choose the course that will help you solve current problems, and that you can apply what you learn easily.
• Find out about the seriousness of the training organisation you are looking for (seniority, reputation, opinions of former students, diplomas and skills of trainers, etc.).
• Check the admission requirements: some short courses require you to already have certain diplomas or prerequisites.
• Check whether the pace of work is suitable for you (as the courses are very short, there are generally no worries in this respect, unlike continuing vocational training courses which can be very time-consuming).
• Find out about the output of the training. Are you interested in training for a degree, further training or a professional qualification? Some courses lead to certificates or diplomas, others to experience.
• Is the course you are interested in face-to-face? Distance learning? At the training organisation's premises or at your workplace?
• Check the cost of the course. Some courses can cost hundreds or thousands of euros. Sometimes they can be financed.

Now you know what a short course is and how to choose it. You also know the advantages of this type of training and what you need to know before making your choice. Do you want to get started? Discover all our professional short courses!

Short course