-(1).jpg?sfvrsn=abf56033_1)
How Does CompTIA Tech Address Tomorrow’s Tech Talent Shortage, Today?
The National Science Foundation predicts that, in just two years, there will be more than three million unfilled skilled technical jobs. How do we start shrinking this looming shortage of technical talent?
One way to grow tomorrow’s tech workforce, says award-winning author and podcaster Charles Eaton, is by helping more adults land IT jobs today.
That’s the mission of the CompTIA Tech Career Academy (a.k.a., CompTIA Tech), Eaton explains during a recent episode of Technologist Talk, the award-winning podcast produced by Creating IT Futures, CompTIA’s tech workforce charity.
“Back in 2012 when we started the IT-Ready Technical Support program in Minneapolis, we had this idea that one day this would be a program that could potentially change many, many lives,” Eaton elaborates.
Over the last eight years, however, Eaton, who is CEO of CompTIA Tech and Creating IT Futures, tells Technologist Talk host R.C. “Bob” Dirkes that he and his team developed a desire to offer a “larger option.”
“We weren't able to get to some of the people that we knew we could serve,” Eaton acknowledges, because IT-Ready was limited by philanthropic funding to a small number of cities. Launching CompTIA Tech, he says, is a way to “expand our footprint” as the IT-Ready program is opened to adult students who “don’t necessarily fit the requirements for… our scholarship streams.”
“There's nothing in the marketplace that is successfully, I think, filling that gap of short-form, eight-week intense training around a tech support role” that is open to motivated learners with access, at least in part, to their own sources of funding, he says.
“There [are] a whole bunch of [IT] infrastructure jobs” in technical support, Eaton stresses. “We want to start many, many more careers.”
Click here to hear the entire podcast episode and learn more, such as why CompTIA Tech differs from other training options, what to expect in an IT-Ready class and how to land – and thrive in – an entry-level IT position.
.png?sfvrsn=43761849_1)