Certification Magazine - March 2008 - (Page 37)

tries, due to a shortage of workers in their own countries, are looking to relocate to the U.S. He warns, however, “American workers must be retrained to produce their product or service.” decade will no doubt present unique opportunities for those new to the IT industry, as well as for existing entry-level IT professionals wishing to move up within their companies. Many big name, Fortune 500 companies have already put strategies in place to help attract young people to the IT industry. Best Buy, for example, offers weekend internships to high school students. The program allows them to earn foundational certifications like A+, Network+ and Server+. By offering flexible summer and weekend work hours, the hope is that Best Buy will be able to retain the technicians even after they start college. Cisco is offering similar internships for its existing technicians, allowing them to intern for Cisco Partners after one year of attending their Networking Academy. This unique program teaches the intern not only technical skills, but business and other soft skills as well. Microsoft has created programs to develop skilled workers in high risk populations. Need for Business Skills Is Most Pressing While the debate rages about the severity of the coming IT skills gap, most experts are in agreement that there is one area within the IT industry that will be hard hit by boomer retirements: business skills. Most in the IT community agree that technical skills can be learned, whereas business skills are already in short supply and require years of real-world experience to acquire — a unique skill set that IT veterans in the boomer generation are more likely to possess than their younger counterparts. “IT managers, project managers and business analysts typically have between 10 and 15 years of experience, and thus have developed an intimate knowledge not only of a company’s systems, but also of their organization and how things get done,” said Andrew Hazen, founder and president of Kansas City-based business skills consulting firm Knowledge 4. “This is the type of knowledge that comes only through years of ‘down in the dirt’ experience, and these are the skills that the younger generation of techies simply do not posses. These are not the type of skills that can be trained in a short time frame or learned in college. Companies will need to train younger, midlevel managers these skills over the course of years in order to prevent a looming disaster as the more experienced boomers retire.” Hope for Those New to the IT Industry With massive numbers of IT professionals retiring and a dwindling numbers of college grads and skilled foreign workers available to fill the shortage, the coming If you were any better prepared you’d be the one on the left. It's the most realistic experience you can have learning the IT industry. With Virtual Labs, you gain real hands-on experience because you can connect to the real equipment 24/7. It's much more than certification prep; it's mastering job skills. For the most complete training available, you have to use Virtual Labs. Visit www.transcender.com or call 1-866-639-8765. Virtual Labs © 2008 Kaplan IT, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcender is a registered trademark of Kaplan IT, Inc. http://www.transcender.com http://www.transcender.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Certification Magazine - March 2008

Certification Magazine - March 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream Tech Careers Academic Connection Dear Techie Virtual Village Mastering IT: Choosing Between an Immediate Job and Higher Education Inside Certification Virtual World Administrators: Service Requests in Cyberspace Interface Boomers in IT: Will the Talent Shortage Affect Techies? Ad Index Endtag

Certification Magazine - March 2008

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