Sean Sullivan

Location: Saint Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Age: 43

An unfortunate accident in 2014 may have limited Sean Sullivan’s ability to maintain a full-time schedule, but it didn’t dampen his determination to have a stimulating career anyway. 

At the time of the incident, Sean had worked for 10 years in the insurance industry and another 10 years in the legal field. While he believed his skill set was highly transferrable to other industries, employers didn’t seem to agree. He’d just moved back to the Niagara Falls region looking for part-time work and was getting a poor response to his resume. He decided to work on upgrading his computer skills, which were fairly good but had room for improvement.

Sean’s previous experience with online learning was “not good at all.” He’d taken a course to bone up on Microsoft Office but didn’t find it in depth enough — not to mention, it was too cost-prohibitive for him to consider that provider again. “I really wanted to focus on individual skills rather than a broad topic,” Sean explains. “Udemy had a bit of everything, and I kept signing up for courses.”

His objective was clear: to beef up his resume and show recruiters that he was actively upgrading his skills in targeted areas. “I just want to work so badly,” he says. What he’s learned so far has already yielded fruit; he’s about to start a part-time job as a tax preparer. He’s also been expanding into new areas. After connecting with a local web designer who needed marketing help, Sean immersed himself in Udemy instructor Daragh Walsh’s courses “SEO for SEO Beginners” and “SEO Roadmap: SEO to Rank #1 and Skyrocket Sales.”

One of the happiest surprises about Udemy for Sean has been the quality and responsiveness of the instructors. “I’m very pleased that the instructors are working professionals who still take the time to answer questions directly,” Sean says. “They’re current and up to date but still accessible.” His instructor for “Preparing Canadian Income Tax Returns,” Ian DiNovo, has connected with Sean on LinkedIn and has stayed in touch to see how his job interviews are going.

For Sean, this is just the beginning of his journey back into the workforce. Tax preparation is only seasonal, so Sean’s top goal is to become self-employed and he’s lining up Udemy courses to get him there. He studied accounting a while ago, and now he wants to update those skills and broaden his resume so he can eventually offer taxation and bookkeeping services to small businesses. Udemy “has been worth every penny” to help him pursue this ultimate ambition.