Certification - May 2008 - (Page 33) he explained. “A lot of our tasks are team based. It’s pretty seldom that you’ll have an engineer who knows everything. One individual may have some expertise in SQL server, for example. When he’s finished with his piece, he’ll hand it off to an engineer who may install CRM, so they have to be able to talk and work together.” Experience and pre-existing skill sets are important talent considerations for its upcoming growth plans, but FrontPages also provides training post-hire. In a relatively new model, the company is weaning itself off a heavy reliance on external training opportunities and is in the process of building an extensive in-house curriculum to cross train engineers in two or more of its core hosting technologies: standard Web hosting, SharePoint, MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint CertScope links to 39 CertMag articles and 60 Web sites touching on “knowledge workers.” “It depends on the size of your organization,” he said. “With smaller groups, which is where we were last year, it made more sense to send them out to a training center. As you get a little bit bigger, it makes more sense to formalize that training because you’ve got people coming in and out so quickly.” Though almost all of its positions are customer facing, FrontPages employees can choose career paths after they’re hired. But everyone starts out in the organization’s help-desk area. “That’s where they cut their teeth, so to speak,” LaMear said. “From there they can move into a junior position or a senior position in one of those other areas. Picture on the left side there’s our help desk, the first line that all customers go into. Then on the right side we’ve got infrastructure.” These IT professionals take care of servers, building out infrastructure for FrontPages. “We’ve got groups who do both, and we’ve got groups who operate in the middle,” LaMear said. “Those people in the middle are transitioning out of help desk and into something with a little bit more responsibility.” Employers want tangible proof of skills to help them discern whether a candidate knows if a solution will or will not work in a specific customer’s environment, regardless of textbook reasoning. Server), Exchange, CRM, SQL and dedicated servers. “Our big technology is SharePoint, so three or four times a year we will actually hold in-house training, and our engineers sit in on those sessions,” LaMear said. “We’ve decided roughly every month we’re going to cover our core technologies in a training session so that people who have an interest can get some exposure.” Training and development are part and parcel of the successful IT professional’s life. In fact, when evaluating potential employers, many expect it, whether in the form of on-the-job training or subsidies to finance external educational opportunities such as boot camps and more traditional academic coursework. Unfortunately, the cost of training is not cheap. While cost is a consideration, LaMear said FrontPages holds a decidedly positive stance on continuing education, and the organization’s move to an in-house training model is one way to ensure its employees remain up-to-date on the latest technology. Like many of today’s employers, LaMear has many differentiators in his arsenal to help categorize the best talent. These include education, experience and relevant certifications. While the appropriate background and applicable work experience is likely to trump other considerations nearly every time, he said certification can tip the scales in a potential candidate’s favor. In fact, an IT professional who has soft skills, technical aptitude, experience and a relevant certification has a distinct advantage. Employers want tangible proof of skills to help them discern whether a candidate knows if a solution will or will not work in a specific customer’s environment, regardless of textbook reasoning. “In the IT field, experience can only be acquired one way: on the job,” LaMear said. “There is no substitute for someone who’s actually been out there doing it and knows what will work and what will not. It’s invaluable. INTERFACE continued on page 39 May 2008 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE 33 http://www.certmag.com/
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