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By Janet Pinkerton
| April 09, 2012
For Dujon Walsham, passing up university in favor of taking IT certification trainings was a great decision. Five years after receiving his first professional certification (CompTIA A+), he has multiple CompTIA and vendor-specific certifications under his belt, and his career in the United Kingdom is flourishing. His current job involves helping companies like eBay and British Airways adopt cloud computing systems, and he receives several calls per day from companies like Microsoft and Barclays ...
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By Jim Staats
| April 06, 2012
Takeaway of the week is computer-related occupations are projected to have a 22-percent increase in employment according to the U.S. government. However at least one government official is already pointing the finger at the dearth of IT pros for U.S. cybersecurity challenges.
U.S. Report: Healthcare and Mobile Technology to Boost IT Jobs Employment in all computer-related occupations is expected to grow by 22 percent by the year 2020, U.S. officials said. According to the ...
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By Janet Pinkerton
| April 05, 2012
On Sarah Pang’s first day working for Illinois Sen. Alan Dixon, in the early 1980s, she asked the senator what her responsibilities would be. “Are you willing to take out the garbage?” he asked. Pang said yes and didn’t take offense. “I knew exactly what he meant,” says Pang. “He wanted to know ‘Are you willing to do what it takes to make the place successful?’” Currently senior vice president of CNA’s corporate communications and public affairs and co-chair of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel' ...
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By Janet Pinkerton
| April 03, 2012
North Carolina has become a hotbed for IT jobs; Denver, Atlanta and Chicago keep growing and St. Louis has emerged as one of the top IT job markets, according to TEKsystems. Below is TEKsystems ranking of the top 10 markets where it has seen the most demand for IT workers. The company reports that the majority of IT worker demand is in specialized job roles: business analysts, project managers, .NET developers and mobility application developers, for example. Across the 10 top IT job markets, ...
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By Jim Staats
| April 02, 2012
In Wallace Wakefield’s line of work, it’s almost redundant to say that security is of the utmost importance. Nevertheless, Wakefield, who works in IT management for the U.S. Department of Defense, remains vigilant about ways to upgrade his knowledge and skill set in this vital sector. He thinks he’s found the latest key ingredient. As an early beta tester for the new CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP) certification, Wakefield recounts the profound benefits. “Any time you can va ...
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By Jim Staats
| March 30, 2012
Takeaway of the week is we actually can survive a batch of seven days touching on the current IT job market without invoking the topics of cloud computing and big data. Some critical news this week discusses how Indian outsourcing efforts are helping U.S. workforce activity and the lack of IT skills could be the tipping point for spiraling youth unemployment in Europe. Study: Indian IT Outsourcing Helps Boost U.S. Workforce
Outsourcing by Indian firms in the U.S. is helping to boost the employm ...
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By Janet Pinkerton
| March 29, 2012
In early 2010, Melanie Moody had IT skills, having worked in the field for decades, but her skills were outdated because she had left her last IT job in 2005 due to health reasons. Fast Forward, a community technology center in Columbia, S.C., helped Moody earn CompTIA A+ and CompTIA Network+ certifications to resume her IT career. “Technology moves so fast in the IT field, when I tried to get back into it, I had a hard time; my knowledge was behind,” says Moody, who worked as an office manager ...
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By Janet Pinkerton
| March 27, 2012
An IT career was something Derrick Graham pursued for years,
completing online-college level IT classes while enlisted in the Navy
and working as an aircraft mechanic. But it wasn’t until he completed
CompTIA certifications required by Department of Defense Directive 8570
at a New Horizons Learning Center in Durham, N.C., that Graham won his
first IT job. “I didn’t get my first break until after obtaining
Security+, which met one of the DoD Directives,” says Graham, now a help
desk ...
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By Anna Matthai
| March 26, 2012
When you call the IT department or tap the talents of developers inside your organization, chances are you’ll be dealing with a man. While women accounted for 47 percent of the total U.S. labor force in January, they comprised just 28 percent of core IT occupations, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Much of this gap can be attributed to the fact that women are underrepresented in the STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and math. Between 2000-2001, women ear ...
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By Janet Pinkerton
| March 26, 2012
Lewis Shoulders is still in his teens, yet he's already a respected IT network technician in the United Kingdom, flying round the world, working on luxury yachts, rubbing shoulders with celebrities. By age 18, he had earned his CompTIA A+ and CompTIA Network+ certifications, using the UK training company Zenos to train for CompTIA Network+ and set up job interviews before landing a job with Livewire Connections. The Surrey, England-based provider of maritime IT networks and entertainment systems ...
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