Education Takes on New Meaning in Shifting Economy

Last night at an event at the Seattle Music Experience, I met a couple of seasoned IT professionals – one a former head of security for a major (albeit defunct) bank. When I say they are “seasoned”, I mean their experience is matched by the number of gray hairs on their head. They had worked for major corporations, held numerous technical and professional certifications, and both are out of work and back in school.

Continual education is one of underpinnings of the technology industry. Vendors require their solution provider partners to attain and maintain technical and professional competency credentials. Businesses value certifications held by employees as a reflection and validation of their skills. And continual education keeps even the best technologist up to date with the latest advancements in products and services delivery.

A funny thing happened during the recession, ‘though. Tens of thousands of IT professionals lost their jobs. While there are plenty of jobs in the technology industry, people like the two gentlemen at I met at the RetroDex event are having an exceedingly difficult time landing a job.

Veteran techies often feel discriminated against by the job market because of their age and their income history. During the halcyon days, skilled programmers and IT managers could command six-figure salaries that included all kinds of perks, including four-week paid vacations, free health insurance and stock options. At the very least, they expected good coffee and free soft drinks in the break room. Under budget pressures, employers have cut back on the fringe benefits and looked to younger, less expensive talent to fill their tech labor needs. 

But there are other forces at play. Technology trends and innovations have outgrown those with experience in the workforce. They can still break down a Cisco router in under four minutes, blindfolded in a dark room, but can they write an app in Java for mobile devices or manage multitenant, virtualized environments? Perhaps, but it’s difficult to prove that on paper when a gray-hair is going up against a t-shirt wearing kid who’s fresh out of school and costs one-third of the price. 

The reason these two guys are back in school is not to refresh their skills and knowledge to make them more competitive in the marketplace, but acquiring net-new skills to make them viable options for would-be employers.

Tech education needs are shifting from refresher and updating skills to acquisition of new skills. IT professionals need to keep adding skills to their repertoire, enhancing their core competency and building expertise in secondary and even tertiary domains. If you’re a security guy, perhaps it’s not a crazy idea to learn database administration. If you’re a Cisco engineer, perhaps now is the time to invest in virtualization training and certifications.

CompTIA, which is the world’s largest administrator of industry-recognized credentials such as A+ and Security+, is constantly looking for new ways to promote skills and deliver education programs. Through its communities, CompTIA is identifying the need for new training programs, information resources and certifications. For newbies trying to break into the technology market or veterans looking to recast their resume, CompTIA is one of the better starting points for re-education.