Let’s get started

Good communication skills – whether interpersonal, oral, written, digital or visual – are in high demand across all industries and employment sectors. But what does good communication look like? What communication skills do you have and how would you go about benchmarking and demonstrating these to benefit you career goals?

Setting the scene for your learning

Have you ever applied for a job that didn’t emphasise communication skills?Communication is essential to engaging others, sharing ideas and building understanding within your team, across an organisation, or with external stakeholders, customers and clients.It’s a vital skill that we often take for granted by failing to appreciate the complexity of all the elements associated with effective communication, especially within a professional context.Your ability to articulate and evidence your communication capabilities is critical to gaining employment opportunities, whether in terms of changing jobs, applying for a promotion, re-entering the workforce, gaining access to the resources required to start your own business, or pursuing further education and training.However, many of us find it difficult to evaluate and market our own communication skills, knowledge and experiences.

What will you be learning?

In this course you’ll:

• investigate the role of communication in both jobs of today and in the future
• explore what communication skills employers are looking for
• discover practical tips and strategies for improving your interpersonal, verbal, written and digital communication skills
• benchmark your own capability in communication against Deakin’s Professional Practice framework
• discover how to apply for an internationally recognised, university-level credential.

Your learning outcomes

By completing this course, you should be able to:

• define communication and its importance to the workplace
• describe the behaviours, skills and knowledge that exemplify good communication
• assess your current communication skills against a qualifications framework
• collect evidence of your capability to demonstrate to employers and/or apply for a communication credential.

Meet the team

Your Lead Educator for this course is Dr Nick Patterson.Joining Nick will be educators Dr Trina Jorre De St Jorre, Associate Professor Colin Higgins and Associate Professor Marcus O’Donnell.You’ll also be hearing from senior industry leaders and holders of employability credentials in communication who’ll provide you with personal insights and perspectives about the role – and importance – of communication.

Your task

Watch the video to hear more from Nick about communication and the big questions you’ll be addressing throughout this course.When you’re done, use the comments to introduce yourself, why you’re taking this course and what you hope to get out of it.Next, select the ‘mark as complete’ button and move to the next step.