Rounding out your skills as a startup recruit is not just smart in this digital day and age– it’s necessary. Good news is there’s no need to jump back into higher ed (unless you really want to). The worldwide web is full of budget-friendly and free (yes, we said f-r-e-e) courses to give your natural gifts and talents an edge. What skills would you want to add to your repertoire? Would your Social Media career benefit from a short foray into visual design? Or could your career in Tech need a boost on the presentation side of things? Don’t fret. Here are the best online courses to jump into:

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There is a certain amount of thrill that comes with change. The idea of a new and sexier workplace is incredibly alluring and probably a big part of why you’re looking for a new job. Besides updating your LinkedIn, going to job fairs, and participating in networking events, you should be creating a strategy around your job hunt to make it as efficient as possible.

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Panic. That’s probably the first feeling that sets in when 4 years whiz by and the job hunt doesn’t go as planned. While your credentials may slay, there’s unfortunately no way to predict how long it will take to find the right job for you. It can get pretty frustrating to see your friends celebrating home runs while you keep missing the ball.

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At Planted, we love books. They’re are a great place to start when you’re interested in learning about, well, anything. They can take you from one world to another, put you in another person’s shoes, and give you valuable insight on all aspects of your life, from your relationships with others to mastering a skill. So to help you celebrate National Read a Book Day, here’s a list of some of the best startup books that you might find useful in helping you develop your career!

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Ahh, the resume. Your entire professional career, succinctly squashed into a page-long Word document. We’ll admit it--drafting up that effective CV can certainly be a challenge, but nailing it is absolutely essential; get it right and you’re one step closer towards landing that big interview. We'll help you answer some common resume questions like, "How long should a resume be?" so you can focus on how you're gonna woo your interviewer.

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With #BlackGirlMagic rolling off the tongue and women of color entrepreneurs becoming the fastest growing population of business-owners you would think bumping elbows with a like-minded network of young multicultural pros would be the norm. But with startups speaking the millennial language of tech, a lot of these spaces are confined to the digital world. Well, we did some digging (so you don’t have to!) and rounded up the top 5 digital spaces to get your entrepreneurial game in Formation.

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Moving on is hard to do. In the 90s, R&B boy band Boyz II Men sang, “ although we've come to the end of the road, still I can’t let… go.” While relationships can get a second go around, being a college graduate often comes around once. So your gown is all tucked away, your college friends have done the proverbial “I’ll see you again,” and everyone is asking you the dreaded “what’s next?”

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Most people are not big fans of conflict. Honestly, it’s always easier to run away from your problems. Sometimes though, you don’t have a choice but to take the bull by the horns and let everyone know they need to be taking you seriously. But that requires you learning how to advocate for yourself properly. How can you be sure you’re not coming across as a nuisance?

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So you wanna work at a startup. You’ve applied, emailed back and forth a bit, and have become more and more excited about the position you can potentially fill. Fast forward a couple of weeks and you’ve knocked phone, coffee, and formal sit-down interviews out of the park. You know you’ve got some allies in the company, and you’ve made it past the startup equivalent of the Elite Four. You’re almost in, but it’s now time to face the end-game boss: the startup founder. Just one more successful round of schmoozing and you’re golden. The pressure’s on, and you need some stellar job interview tips to really set you apart.

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Silicon Valley is revolutionizing education as we know it. Startup companies are creating and using technology to improve education, whether by providing more tools or making it easier for educators to focus on what's important -- spreading knowledge. With hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital for just edtech startups, it’s no wonder that education is becoming a booming industry.

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So you’ve been on the job for a while, and things are going well. You like your team, you’re learning a ton, and your responsibilities are growing. You’re finally moving in the right direction, at the right pace. But there’s just this one tiny thing you could do with a bit more of. You know what we mean -- we’re talking cash money.

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Everybody’s got their own battles. Life is a complicated and messy thing, and we can’t pretend to know what everyone is going through. But what we do know is that investing in mental health is just as important as physical health (and one is often tied to the other). We wish an apple a day would keep the stress at bay, but there’s no magic fruit that will make mental health struggles disappear.

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Mentors are like parents, but without the nagging. They can help you find direction in your life and give you insight on what it’s like being a responsible adult. Most people figure out a way to navigate their careers without a mentor just fine, but if someone is willing to sit down with you and talk you through your life, why not take advantage?

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New York City is home to yuge buildings and even yuuuger companies--but that doesn't mean that startups aren't #thriving amidst the yellow cabs and halal carts. Quite the contrary: coworking spaces are being overrun by leagues of startup employees rethinking the worlds of business and tech. The best part? They're looking for vibrant individuals like yourself to drive their growth into the stratosphere. Here are some of our favorite movers and shakers taking their bite out of the Big Apple.

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We’re celebrating 20 years of magic this week--the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is upon us! You and your co-workers have definitely been influenced in some way by J.K. Rowling’s literary wizardry (whether you like it or not). There may or may not be a few of us in the startup world who grew up with Harry Potter, who considered themselves a part of Dumbledore’s Army. Some of us might want to name our future children after Severus Snape. Maybe we wrote our honors theses on Harry Potter. So, in celebration of this hallowed anniversary, here are some important lessons we learned from The Boy Who Lived (and his squad) that you can apply to your new startup job if you want to win those 10 points for Gryffindor.

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