If you’re currently an employee working a low-paying job at Amazon, a promotion to a better role, with more meaningful responsibilities and better pay, is more likely than you think. 

While Amazon is famous for meeting the needs of its customers, the retail giant is equally focused on supporting its vast workforce through initiatives like the Career Choice Program. Designed to help Amazon employees expand their skills and knowledge, the program opens new career paths by offering an opportunity to upskill and secure higher-paying jobs.

Amazon’s Career Choice Program is more than just a career-advancement initiative; it’s an investment, not only in the employees themselves but also in the company’s future success.

Technology has changed everything

The fact that technology is changing the way we work is no longer a matter of debate. And companies and employees need to have a strategy for how to keep up with the changes. To stay relevant and competitive, employees need to audit their talents and update their skills, while companies need a plan for how to create a future-fit workforce. 

Learning new skills or enhancing existing ones correlates with an employee’s career progression and security, job satisfaction, and earning potential. These are key factors in a company’s ability to thrive in the modern paradigm. 

According to research by Deloitte, the need for job-centric upskilling — training employees for specific jobs that are vacant instead of general training — is paramount. And Amazon is one of the leading companies that’s understood this, heavily investing in their employees through the Amazon Career Choice Program.

Understanding the Amazon Career Choice Program

The Amazon Career Choice Program offers Amazon employees access to courses designed to teach in-demand skills that help with career advancements, both within and outside the company. Depending on the course, the program covers a wide range of skills, preparing employees for roles in various fields, including: 

• Data science and analysis
• Business and sales operations
• Project management
• Computer engineering

Through partnerships with Pathstream and accredited schools, tech companies, and educational institutions, Amazon offers courses (on a rotating availability) that provide reskilling and upskilling opportunities. 

Key features of Amazon’s Career Choice Program: 

• Courses are 100% online.
• Flexible schedules allow employees to work full-time while participating in the program. 
• The program lasts between 17-18 weeks, divided into two course modules.
• The only educational requirement is a high school degree.
• Full-time, part-time, or hourly Amazon employees are eligible to apply.
• Employees receive career support and advice throughout, including the hiring process. 

Financial structure and program benefits

Amazon covers 100% of tuition fees for current employees in the United States, with international employees receiving reimbursement for 95% of the program costs. Once you’ve signed up for a program, you have until the enrollment deadline to request payment from Amazon.

In the long term, the financial benefits of participating in the Career Choice Program are significant. By gaining new skills and qualifications, employees can increase their earning potential within Amazon and beyond by transitioning into higher-level roles or entirely new career paths with better compensation. 

Upskilling Opportunities through Amazon and Pathstream 

Knowing how to find the right reskilling and upskilling programs can be tricky, which is why Amazon has partnered with Pathstream to curate programs that directly teach the skills needed to thrive in new roles. 

These courses are valuable for those who want to explore new career paths and for anyone who wants to advance within their current roles at Amazon. By enhancing skills relevant to their work, employees can become more efficient, take on more complex tasks, and position themselves for promotions or transitions into new roles within the company.

Let’s look at the two programs currently offered to better understand what they are, what you’ll learn, and how these upskilling courses can teach you the skills relevant to Amazon’s internal career paths.

Tech, Sales, Operations

Start date: June 6th, 2023
Duration: 18 Weeks 
Last day to enroll: June 1st, 2023

Ideal for anyone interested in sales and operations, this program teaches you about business systems, data, proactive marketing, and project management using the latest tools, software, and techniques. Specifically designed materials and hands-on projects help you gain the skills to find jobs in sales and tech operations, customer success, marketing, and more.

Note: The enrollment period has closed for the program above.
 

Course 1: Salesforce Admin — Customer Relationship Management for Business

• Learn about customer relationship management (CRM) software
• Differentiate, and define data-types
• Set up a Salesforce Trailhead account
• Understand data tracking and hygiene
• Identify and configure reports to capture relevant information

 Course 2: Agile Project Management

• Learn the fundamentals of project management methodologies.
• Manage a technical project using project management frameworks.
• Use Scrum methodologies to support a team and complete projects.
• Plan and execute a kickoff sprint using relevant software.
• Improve team efficiency by resolving velocity issues.
• Use retrospective analysis to improve internal efficiencies.

Click here to learn more about the enrolment process to participate in this program. 

Data Analytics, Tech, Business 

Start date: July 18th, 2023
Duration: 17 Weeks 
Last day to enroll: July 12th, 2023

Anyone who loves numbers, reports, data, and organizing and communicating them is the perfect candidate for this upskilling opportunity. The program teaches you to use top-of-the-line software to gather, crunch, and analyze data, providing the skills to look for jobs in data and business analytics, operations, management, and marketing.
 

Course 1: Business Analytics Fundamentals

• Understand business analytics. 
• Run analyses and develop visualizations to discover patterns in data.
• Perform sorting and filtering techniques to wrangle data.
• Use software to analyze data to find actionable insights.
• Apply exploratory data analysis (EDA) using visual representations.
• Present conclusions and analysis using Google Sheets & Google Slides.

Course 2: Data Analytics with Tableau

• Use cutting-edge Tableau software to create data visualizations.
• Learn to classify, edit, and review data using Tableau.
• Convert analysis to business insights.
• Build a Tableau Story to present insights to stakeholders.
• Apply Tableau extracts to optimize analysis performance.

Click here to learn more about the enrolment process to participate in this program.

Career success and development support

One of the best parts of the program is that participants can take advantage of career development support. From academic counseling to career coaching, Pathstream’s Career Services team is there to help you through every process. 

Individual career coaches will help you with academic counseling and career planning, including: 

• Updating your resume or portfolio with your new skills.
• Identifying potential job opportunities.
• Introducing you to recruiters and hiring partners.
• Preparing you for interviews.

Career coaches also help with the transition process by teaching you how to optimize and apply your new skills to future roles. They provide guidance and practical advice, including strategies to showcase your nearly-learned skills and connect with employers who need your services. 

Flexibility and Convenience

Besides the costs of education, a big reason why many employees don’t consider upskilling opportunities is that they don’t have the time to invest in education. 

By recognizing that many employees have full-time schedules and college, Amazon has introduced a lot of flexibility into its Career Choice Program. All courses are available online, with many part-time and flexible study schedule options. By providing these options, Amazon allows employees to balance their work, learning, and personal responsibilities.

Amazon does this by allowing participants to study at their own pace and providing resources and support to guide them. This effectively frees employees to study alongside their work responsibilities, making it more feasible to consider career advancement. 

Empowering Success Stories

Nothing demonstrates the value and effectiveness of a program like success stories. And when it comes to Amazon’s partnership with Pathstream, there are plenty to choose from. 

Success stories like Carlos’s, who, after completing Pathstream’s Data Analytics Certificate Program, has started a new career as an analyst at Engie North America, earning upwards of $80k a year. 

Or Jody, now the assistant director at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) after completing Pathstream’s Asana Project Management Certificate.  

These two stories speak to the effectiveness and long-term value of the right upskilling program. A key takeaway from many success stories is that most former Amazon employees started feeling stuck. They believed their options were limited, and upskilling and transitioning into a better-paying job weren’t possible. 

But that’s not the case, and Amazon’s partnership with Pathstream has hundreds of student success stories to prove it.

How to Leverage the Career Choice Program for Career Advancement

Not all courses are created equal, and identifying what skills you want to acquire or enhance is critical to leveraging what you learn in a program. To make the most of your upskilling opportunities, you should have clear goals, plans, and a means of executing them. 

It’s important first to audit your current skillsets, learning potential, and preferences. The more thought you put into this, the better the outcome. Building an effective resume, portfolio, and LinkedIn profile is another step, followed by networking with recruiters, strategic application, and interview preparation. 

These are the things Pathstream’s Career Services team will help with. By taking advantage of the coaching and guidance, you can stay proactive and easily translate what you’ve learned to jobs that pay more.

Pathstream | The Right Education for the Right Job

There are many advantages to Amazon’s Career Choice Program, and Pathstream is here to help you maximize them all. As current Amazon employees, getting on a path of career advancement en route to a salary increase is easy as a few clicks away. 

Whether you want a better job with a higher salary or you’re a company ready to upskill your team, Pathstream’s carefully designed and curated courses will provide the exact type of upskilling to help you reach your goals. 

To find out if Pathstream’s courses are right for you, learn more and maximize the benefits of Amazon’s Career Choice Program.