“Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a livn’/ Barely getting’ by, it’s all takin’ and no givin’/ They just use your mind and they never give you credit/ It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it!”
Dolly Parton sang that many years ago, and many of us feel trapped in that same hamster wheel. We can feel stuck in the lower gears of the business machine, always cranking out the same work for the same people—never getting promoted to the place where our value can really shine.
But moving up the ladder can be a difficult thing. You need the right skillset—and the right paperwork to prove it. But who has time to go back to school? Our 9 to 5 is obviously taken up, and the rest of our day is claimed by family, meals, or much-needed rest. How can you find time to grow your marketability, while still working?
That’s where online learning sites like GoSkills step in. GoSkills offers “bite-sized learning,” that enables you to level up your skills, earn certificates, and maybe even land that big promotion you’ve been eyeing. But is GoSkills legitimate? Is it worth the price? We’ll dive in today with this review of GoSkills to see if it’s right for you.
What Is GoSkills?
GoSkills is an online course library, a “learning Netflix” of video courses. They aim to “help you learn essential business skills to achieve your full potential,” and are business-skills oriented, with simple, “bite-sized online courses.” These smaller courses make learning easier and more fun—one of the company’s core principles.
GoSkills believes that “your potential is limitless, your learning should be too,” and so offers customizable paths for every student.
It is a smaller platform though—only around 0 courses; however, all of their courses come with certifications accredited by official organizations, and so allow you to earn either PDU’s or CEU’s. Because GoSkills is a smaller platform, they currently have about 200,000 students, but their size doesn’t affect the quality of their videos.
How GoSkills Works
To use GoSkills, you’ll first have to purchase a subscription. These cost $29/month, or $199/year—however, GoSkills offers a 7-day free trial, if you want to simply test the waters first. Create an account with your email, Facebook, Google, or your other favored identifier-of-choice.
Once you create your account, you’ll be taken to your profile page. Here, you can upload a profile picture of yourself looking snazzy, see a list of all the certificates you’ve earned, and see your progress in your courses.
As you complete courses, you’ll earn badges and prizes which are displayed at the top of your profile page—along with stats on how many days you’ve studied in a row. One of GoSkills’ core ideas is that of fun, tapping into the fact that we can learn things in three repetitions in play that would take us over 10 repetitions otherwise.
But let’s find how to actually take a GoSkills course. While GoSkills focuses mainly on business skills, these are divided into 9 categories: Microsoft Excel, Project Management, Design, Finance, Microsoft Office, Soft Skills, Office Productivity, Development, and Lean Sigma Six. One particularly interesting category is Soft Skills—those abilities of people interactions and team relations that every company wants but few people have.
GoSkills doesn’t offer many courses—only about 70 total, with the most in one category being 14. This does make it simpler to see your options though, and to choose which course to begin first. For each course you’ll see a title with the rating—but you’ll have to click on the course itself to see more in-depth information.
A single course averages between 2-5 hours of video material—though some beginner ones take only an hour and some advance ones require 7 hours. And there’s no need to worry if the material taught is up-to date, as GoSkills updates courses every month.
On a course’s homepage you’ll be able to see an overview of the course, highlights, and also a course syllabus. There’s a section to meet the instructor, as well as the ability to read reviews to see if this course is worth your time (hint: all the courses are high-quality, so it probably is!). You’ll also be able to see how many hours is expected to finish the course, along with who it is accredited by—as all GoSkills courses offer an included certificate from accredited third-party organizations.
Each part of the module is split into several video lessons, ranging from 3-6 minutes long. GoSkills has several built-in tools right in the video browser, which you can customize the layout to your preference. You can download exercise files, read a summary of the lesson, have the video transcript, as well as have a place to easily take notes. But it’s not all passive learning—quizzes with every video to test your learning, and help cement the terms and concepts in your brain.
As you go, you’ll earn badges for completing lessons and modules, as well as be able to track your progress through the program. Once you complete watching all of the videos and quizzes, you’ll earn a certificate of completion. If you choose to take the test, you’ll earn an accredited Certificate of Accomplishment displaying your score at no extra cost—and you can then print off or share this certificate on your CV, resume, or LinkedIn profile.
Business can use GoSkills as well, either creating their own course on its LMS, or managing and tracking their team as members take courses, and assign different courses to different team members.
Is GoSkills Accredited?
Though most MOOC’s (massive open online courses) boast that you can earn certificates from their site, most are distributed directly from that organization, and not worth much.
GoSkills Is Different
GoSkills has the rare quality of being completely accredited, so all their courses are certified by third-party sources, which allows you to earn both CEU’s (continuing education units) and PDU’s (professional development units.) These certificates are from some of the top accreditation organizations, CPP, IASSC, and PMI. These certificates can be printed out, included in your CV, or included in your LinkedIn profile, so employers can easily see an access them.
GoSkills also offers yet another level of accreditation through their site to ensure your certificate is valuable: an online verification tool. With this, an employer can simply type in your full name and the number on your certificate, and instantly see confirmation of completion of the course along with test scores.
Is GoSkills Legit?
GoSkills is thoroughly accredited, so their courses are legitimate in that way. Their courses are also very high-quality—while they may be short on time, that doesn’t mean they skimp on either the quality or content. GoSkills creates their video courses in-house, and has a thorough vetting process to hire their instructors. Instructors must not only be experts in their field, but also great communicators and teachers.
Video courses are regularly updated as well, so the material taught is still legitimate—which is great for using products by companies like Adobe, which likes to keep users on their toes by constantly restructuring their products.
GoSkills is also trusted by several Fortune 500 companies—businesses like Hilton and Intuit both use their system.
Their customer service is available to help as well. Though you have to go a round-about way to find a customer service page on their site, (click on the chat bot, and then keep clicking through until it brings you to the page), they also have a large FAQ page to answer any questions. Yet there have been few complaints about customer service interaction, so they appear to be helpful and ready to serve.
Is GoSkills Worth The Price?
But one of the biggest questions with any product comes down to money. Is GoSkills cheap? As far as pricing goes, GoSkills is a little on the higher edge of average. They are a subscription-based company, where you subscribe and then have access to all of their courses. A monthly subscription costs $29 a month, while a yearly subscription costs $199/year (which saves you about $150).
However, GoSkills does offer a 7-day free trial which allows you to take 10 lessons of any and all courses that they offer. This is a great way to test-drive a course, and see if it’s something you’re interested in. After all, you don’t want to purchase a subscription to lean coding, only to realize you don’t want to go any further than creating that “Hello world” sheet! GoSkills also accepts coupon codes, many of which offer up to a 25% discount.
GoSkills is also offering you a whole lot more for your money. Even for some subscription-based online courses, you often have to pay extra to earn a certificate, usually starting at $50. GoSkills allows you to earn multiple certificates included in their price—and these certificates are accredited by reputable third-party sites. So while GoSkills may not be cheap, you’re receiving much more for the price.
GoSkills Alternatives
GoSkills Vs PluralSight
PluralSight is a larger online learning platform—boasting over 6,500 courses. PluralSight is very focused on the technology niche, though many of its courses overlap with GoSkills, such as Coding, and Production and Design. PluralSight offers many extra features as well—it’s learning paths make it easy to get a full understanding of a topic, and the Skills and Roles IQ quizzes are great ways to keep track of your progress.
Pluralsight’s basic monthly subscription costs the same as GoSkills, $29/month, but their yearly is $100 more expensive, sitting at $299. Furthermore, you have to pay more to earn certificates with PluralSight, a feature GoSkills has built-in. To have a certificate-earning subscription costs $499/year—and though they are partnered with large corporations, Pluralsight’s certificates aren’t truly accredited. Though GoSkills offers fewer courses and less fancy tools, they’re a much cheaper way to earn accredited certificates.
GoSkills Vs LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn is a well-known name, so it’s no surprise to see that their learning platform is high-quality as well. They also offer 30,000 courses with their subscription, mainly related to business. LinkedIn Learning costs the same as GoSkills, $29/month, and offers a large community of fellow learners as you go through their courses.
However, not all of their courses offer certificates, and it can be difficult to navigate through the masses of courses. LinkedIn Learning is also less gamified than GoSkills. GoSkills focuses more on bite-sized approaches, and awards badges, giving your brain that little boost of dopamine to keep pressing on in your learning journey.
Conclusion: GoSkills
If you’re interested in earning certificates to prove your worth, GoSkills is the way to go. While they may not have the largest selection or the fanciest tools, they’re simple, straightforward, and most importantly, accredited. The worth of an official certificate makes it well worth the price, and ease of use and bite-sized learning method makes it well worth your time. If you want to grow your skills and advance your career, GoSkills is the way to go.