This article overviews different types of economics skills training courses and discusses how course organizers and recruiters can make sure their programs get seen and attract the right talent. If you’re looking to better serve the economics alumni from your degree programs, build a pipeline of potential PhD candidates, or just attract more attention to the professional training courses you offer, keep reading for more.

Economics is a large field with many sub-disciplines, and it’s impossible to master the whole lot from just one Master’s degree or even a PhD. A single economist doesn’t have to master the entire field, but taking time to deepen important skills can be very helpful for an economist’s career.

So, proactive economists will seek opportunities to further their skills beyond graduation, especially as they encounter situations in the workplace that demand more technical or subject-specific skills. Professional development courses or skills training are one great method for them to do so, and institutions can develop and advertise them with this in mind.

Who, what, and where: the basics of skills trainings for economists

Professional training courses for economists may be offered by universities or by other organizations, including private companies and even multinational organizations like the IMF. Usually for a modest tuition fee, applicants can take a class that lasts anywhere from a single day to a few weeks. Some of these economics trainings are only offered in person and on-site, but many course providers are increasingly offering online courses so that anyone around the world can join in.

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These training courses are usually focused around a particular topic, and are designed to give either an introduction to a specific area of economics (for example, macroeconomic forecasting), a useful tool for economists (such as R or Python), or a related field (like data science).

Economists looking to develop their skills will often search the Internet to look at online courses offered by their alma mater, another school they know of, or a reputable international organization. Online course platforms like Coursera are also a common place to search, but economists will typically still want to know which university is actually behind the course.

And of course, to develop or host such a course, one must have an appropriate expert to help develop and deliver the course. This is one of the main reasons why universities and well-known international organizations tend to be the ones hosting economics trainings – they already have access to experienced economists willing to teach, as well as access to a community of (young) economists who might be interested in taking them.

Common topic areas of professional development for economists

There are a number of in-demand areas in which economists (particularly fresh Master’s or PhD graduates) seek to further hone their skillset. Below we list major topic areas institutions should consider promoting specifically to economics graduates and professionals:

Econometrics and statistics: This is an important area containing many critical skills for economists, and as such these courses tend to be very popular – but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the easiest to recruit for, since there’s also lots of competition for these courses.

Additional coursework in econometrics or statistics can be massively helpful in a young economist’s career, offering a deeper understanding of the math and methods that power economic analysis. This can include topics on statistics, time series analysis, managing panel data, niche or advanced regression models (like gravity models), etc. Courses on quantitative topics such as these are both difficult to learn and widely applicable across a variety of economics subfields, which lends to their popularity.

It’s usually necessary for professional economists to develop their skills in a few useful quantitative methods at some point in their careers. If your institution is attempting to design and launch more professional training courses for economists, consider starting with courses in these areas first.

Software tools: R, Stata, Python, SAS, SPSS, Eviews and dozens more: the statistical software tool options for economists are as myriad as they are complex. It’s likely that economists will need to learn at least one of these tools well in order to conduct data analysis.

While many institutions offer introductory courses on these tools during economics degrees, professional economists often need a deeper expertise that schools usually cannot provide during the already-demanding economics degree program. So, many economists find themselves lacking advanced proficiency with software tools that they’ll need in the workplace. Courses in this area can help patch up those deficiencies.

Data Science topics: Data science is a distinct field from economics or the econometric software that they use. Nevertheless, economists increasingly find many topics in data science interesting and helpful for their research and career. That’s because understanding data science can help economists work more effectively and conscientiously with their large economic datasets.

Data science courses can also help prepare economists for the cutting-edge technology and research methods that will impact how economics is researched in the future. For example, economists and data scientists are already using machine learning algorithms to make forecasts, and may increasingly be using large-language models (LLMs) to analyze economic data. Other elements of data science (such as bootstrapping and decision tree models) have already made their way into the field of economics, so it can be helpful for economists to become familiar with these tools.

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Advanced micro- or macroeconomics: Although every economics degree comes with micro- and macroeconomics coursework, advanced topics within these broad categories may need refreshing after a graduate has taken the first steps into their economics career. Advanced microeconomic or macroeconomic courses help take the fundamentals closer to real-world application, and can even inspire research by reminding graduates how macroeconomists (for example) tackle some problems that microeconomics-focused specialists don’t think about as often.

Niche topics within these categories may be helpful for economists in a new role, too; perhaps a labor economist could benefit from reviewing the latest behavioral economics models, for example. And finally, some courses could delve deep into newly emerging research methods, or explain niche economic models that semester courses didn’t have time to introduce.

Advertising your course

When advertising your training courses, it’s important to emphasize the specific professional development skills that each course aims to provide, and offer a clear look at the course curriculum. These factors are usually the bare minimum for an economist to consider the course. For example, if they want to develop their Stata skills, they’ll look for a course that is all about Stata and contains specific topics they’re struggling with.

Therefore, in your communications about the course – via advertisements, emails, or other messaging – be sure to clearly state the course’s topic areas of focus. Any accolades earned by the economics department or professor overseeing the course should be mentioned as well.

Similarly, It’s also important to design an informative title for the training course. This involves understanding the reasons why an economist might search for the course. Designing the name of the course to clearly communicate the skills economists will learn is key to driving recruitment and engagement.

For example, “Advanced Macroeconomic Analysis” is a fine name for a required course during a degree program. But for a professional training course, it falls flat. That’s because it’s unclear what the course is actually about, other than ‘macroeconomics’. A better title clearly lists the specifics, so that a prospective learner can quickly determine if the course will help them with what they need.

For example, titles like “DSGE Models for Macroeconomic Analysis”, “Advanced Stata Tools for Time Series Analysis”, and “Analyzing Business Cycle Theory with Panel Data Tools” are much more eye catching to students looking to develop in those areas, and help a prospective student get excited about the course content before they even click on the link.

Announce your course on INOMICS

For most economists, the first place to search for professional development training courses is online. Therefore, finding a useful hub for economists where your course can be listed is very helpful.

Generic course-catalog sites like Coursera can serve this purpose, for a fee to the institution. Other options include economics-specific sites where you’re likely to find a very high concentration of your target audience, like INOMICS.

INOMICS helps put your Professional Training Announcement in front of potential candidates in economics across the web, email and social media, increasing your chances of reaching interested candidates and making your course a success.

To really expand the number of candidates seeing your announcement, we have advanced promotion options and tools like Multi-Channel Promotion to try. This gives recruiters a tailor-made blend of content marketing, social media and email advertising to target the listing among our audience of economics professionals and students. Be sure to speak to our Sales Team at info@inomics.com to customize the right package for your institution, or check out our publish page for our latest pricing.

INOMICS’ mission is to help institutions raise their profile and reputation and effectively recruit the best candidates in economics. Whether you are promoting a study program, postdoc, professor job, industry position, economics conference, scholarship, professional training course, or institution, our packages can be tailored to your needs to produce the best results.