Certification - July 2008 - (Page 22)

Entry-Level Certs Fill Skills Gap JOHN VENATOR Certifications for workers in the information technology industry, historically targeted at professionals with at least a few years of experience on the job, are more and more being tailored for entry-level candidates. For certifying bodies, the shift is aimed in part at addressing shortages of certain technology skills that are impacting the industry and have the potential to be even more problematic in the not-so-distant future. For workers new to the high-tech sector, the emergence of new certification options at the entry level is good news. Even in a market in which companies say technical skills are lacking, employers are more demanding and selective in their searches for technology workers. Individuals securing jobs in today’s tech workplace are equipped with greater versatility and a broader skill set than was required in the past. An industryrecognized certification puts the worker — even an entry-level worker — in a stronger position with prospective employers. Certifications are a clear indicator for the employer that the individual who wants a job has the skills to perform the tasks. percent of employers surveyed for Manpower said they are having problems filling open jobs because of a lack of talent. Today’s IT jobs are more complicated than they were 10 or 20 years ago. Applications, networks and systems call for IT professionals with a much broader set of skills, even at the entry level. Multiple studies suggest there will be a wide gap in the next five to 10 years between the demand for IT workers and the supply of workers with the right technical skills. Research firm IDC puts that gap at 40 percent. A 2008 study commissioned by CompTIA that surveyed more than 3,500 IT managers in 14 countries found that there are gaps in several critical technical areas. There is a wide gap between the IT security skills that organizations want and the corresponding skills that workers bring to the job. Among organizations surveyed in nine countries with established IT industries — Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States — 73 percent identified security, firewalls and data privacy as the IT skills most important to their organizations. But just 57 percent said their IT employees are proficient in these security skills, a gap of 16 percentage points. The gap is even wider in five countries where the emergence of a strong IT industry is relatively recent: China, India, Poland, Russia and South Africa. Among respondents in these countries, 76 percent identified security as the top skill their organizations need, but just 57 percent said their current tech staffs are proficient in security. That’s a difference of 19 percentage points. Other skills with significant gaps between importance and proficiency are soft skills — such as customer service, sales, project management, communication — and nonspecific server technology including database, storage, maintenance and administration. Development of new entry-level IT certifications and the refinement of existing certifications are intended to address this critical skill issue, according to Gretchen Koch, director of skills development for CompTIA. “It gets back to enlarging the number of IT professionals and keeping the pipeline of workers filled,” she said. Meeting Demand IT jobs are among the 10 hardest jobs to fill, according to an April 2008 survey by Manpower. Nearly 25 22 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE July 2008 http://www.comptia.org/ http://www.manpower.com/

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Certification - July 2008

Certification - July 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Data System Virtual Village Tech Careers Dear Techie Academic Connection Look Ahead Troubleshooting Testing Your Foot in the Door: Certification at the Entry Level Analyzing the Societal Effects of YouTube Interface Spread the Knowledge: Becoming an IT Trainer Inside Certification Ad Index What We Like Endtag

Certification - July 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.