If you’re in the midst of a pretty long state of unemployment, you may want to consider increasing your skills through further training. Of course, I realize that some courses are pricey, and you may not have the funds to pursue any when you’re unemployed. But it sure helps alleviate the effect on a resume of a long period between jobs if you can say that you were bettering your skills while you were looking for a job.

There’s also the issue of trying to decide what courses to take and what certs to pursue. It can be time consuming to pore over sites one by one to find out what is best for you or what meets your criteria. Fortunately, TechRepublic is now offering a Training tab. (You’ll find it at the top of the TechRepublic front door, but you can click here to see it.)

This is a one-stop shopping experience for those who want to learn about what’s out there in the training world. The new Training tab lets you search by technology, vendor, and geographical location. For example, I searched under ITIL, and the resulting page turned up 18 available courses and then let me sort the results by relevance or price. When you click on an individual  course, you’ll see a synopsis of the course, what you’ll learn, what kind of learning method it is (e.g., classroom learning), how much it costs, and a list of locations where the training is available.

The Training tab also offers a Forum where members can discuss their experience with a particular course, which can help with your decision-making. It’s a pretty cool tool. Check it out!