How to Choose an Online Training Program

Online education is here to stay. It’s a great option if you’re looking for something that lets you go back to school while juggling a family or work schedule, you don’t want to deal with the hassle of transferring when you PCS, or you want to be able to learn at the pace that works best for you. Even long-established colleges and universities now have online programs—but with all the online training options, how do you choose? What are the signs that a program will be worth your time and money.

Well, I happen to have the inside scoop on that story. Let me give you the low down.

There are two areas to consider when you’re comparing online programs: quality and support. Just like all college programs aren’t created equal, there can be huge differences in the training you get from different online courses. You want to choose a program that will leave you prepared to actually get a job. It’s also easy to feel like you’re all alone when you’re training online; it’s a lot easier to get through a training program when you feel well supported with the help you need.

So, with that in mind, here are a few questions to guide your online program selection:

Is this program approved by reputable industry organizations?

A school’s accreditation tells you that a third party organization has verified that the school offers quality training overall—there’s no guarantee that that third party actually looked at the program you’re considering or that they have the expertise to judge the quality of that training if they did. However, if a program is approved by the leading industry organization, you have the reassurance that people who actually do the job you’re training for believe that the training program will prepare you to be successful.

Let me make this a little more concrete with an example from our catalog. Medical coding and billing is a very detail-oriented, complicated field, and there’s no guarantee that someone from a third party accreditation organization would know enough about the ins and outs of coding to truly judge the quality of our program. On the other hand, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is the largest industry association for medical coders in the country. They offer a number of credentials that certify a coder’s skills and expertise, and their name is recognized by every employer in the country. CareerStep’s Professional Medical Coding and Billing program is one of the only online training programs approved by AHIMA, and our course went through an extensive evaluation process involving an entire panel of reviewers to earn that approval. That’s a stamp of approval that actually carries weight because employers have a third party they trust telling them that our graduates have the skills to do the job.

What resources are available when I need help?

The resources that come with an online training program can vary from being completely on your own to being required to participate in instructor chats or post a certain number of times in a student forum. Obviously, everyone is comfortable with different levels of support, but a course that has instructors available to help when you need it can be a good marker of program quality.

You should also ask if the instructors have real world experience working in the field you’re preparing for. Who better to help you train for a new job than someone who’s actually done it?

Do graduates get jobs, and what support is available after graduation?

At the end of the day it all comes down to whether you’ll be able to get a good job when you’re done. So ask the question, and do your research. See if you can actually talk to others who have taken the course, and ask what their experiences were—both in the job market and with any available graduate support resources.

If you’re training for a career field you have no experience in (for example, if you’ve only ever worked in retail and you’re preparing for a career in health care), having graduate support advisors who can help you through the job search process can be invaluable. They can teach you the ins and outs of navigating the specific industry’s hiring process, they know what your resume should look like, and they can give you tips on earning relevant industry credentials.

Is the cost reasonable?

There are a lot of educational programs out there, both online and on campus, that are very, very expensive—especially when you compare them to the earning potential of your new career. Be a smart consumer and make sure that the price you’re paying for your education is reasonable for the amount you can expect to earn your first few years out of school.

To give you another example from our catalog, we offer a pharmacy technician program for just under $2,000. On average pharmacy technicians earn more than $14 per hour for an annual average of about $30,000. That makes your training costs about 6% of what you can earn your first year out of school. That is a reasonable price for education. However, there are pharmacy technician programs out there with tuition prices of more than $30,000—which is definitely not a reasonable price for your education.

Choosing a quality online training program is really no different than anything else in life. Be a smart consumer, do your research, and know what you’re looking for.

If you’d like more information about online career training programs, visit CareerStep.com.