Twilight express

CRT Group's Career IT scheme can even turn Mr Bean into an IT whizz-kid.

The dearth of IT professionals within the channel is keeping dealerskid. from providing the kind of service which users demand. The skills shortage has reached such high levels that companies have started taking their own initiative.

One such company is the CRT Group. It is investing #70 million over the next two years in a scheme called Career IT. Under the scheme, it will recruit 2,000 programmers, integration specialists, technical support staff and systems maintenance personnel, doubling its core of permanent staff.

CRT business development director Mark Edwards says: 'We would like to enhance the appeal of a career in IT to those people who might not have considered it before.' The company is also taking the novel approach by targeting the over 40s and women. 'The principal things to look for are aptitude and ability,' says Edwards.

Surprisingly, what Edwards is not looking for is IT experience. He is enrolling novices into a fast-track training programme, to equip them for careers as programmers, and support and installation professionals in the shortest possible time.

Julia Jones, director of education and services at Ilion subsidiary Faculty says people without an IT background 'won't be able to cope', unless CRT supplements its training with practical experience.

Edwards disagrees, saying: 'We have been recruiting from outside the IT industry for some time, and have proved that it can work. We have the infrastructure in place and plenty of satisfied customers.'

James Wickes, MD of Ideal Hardware, takes a broader view, saying: 'Critics are sceptical about the industry moving into the recruitment of non-IT people, but is there such a thing as a non-IT person? Surely the IT industry is so pervasive that everyone knows something about it. Anyway, everyone has to start somewhere. Even the so-called IT professionals were non-IT people at one time.

'All CRT is doing is taking non-graduates and older people. If they get the selection process right, there is no reason why it can't work,' he says.

Alison Heath, sales director at Datrontech, says: 'Provided the selection and training processes are high quality, it can be better to recruit non-IT people because they don't come with so many bad IT habits.

CRT is creating a red herring. We have always made our jobs open to non-IT people.'

Edwards believes the IT industry has a negative image which prevents people considering it as a career. 'Once you stop thinking it's essential to have people who have a track record in IT, and start from the point where your main need is a logical approach to problem solving, then you immediately expand your potential catchment pool.' Rob Wirszycz, head of the CSSA, adds that initial recruitment is not the issue. He explains: 'Provided the screening and recruitment process attracts those people with the right abilities, the essential thing is to make sure they have long-term, on-going support. The only thing that sets people from non-IT backgrounds apart from IT professionals is experience, and that can easily be gained with training.'

Wirszycz supports the CRT scheme, but adds that it's also important that trainees reach widely recognised standards of training such as NVQ, or industry acknowledged standards such as Microsoft or Novell Professionals.

Edwards says the CRT trainees will receive internal diplomas once they have completed the first three month's introduction, and will then be encouraged to take more widely recognised qualifications. He adds: 'We are going to invest in these people, and will expect them to commit to staying with us for at least two years.'

Anyone who leaves CRT within the two-year period will be expected to repay the cost of their training. 'We will have a sliding scale so that the longer trainees stay with us the less they will have to repay,' he adds. Edwards believes this part of the scheme, combined with CRT's rigorous selection procedure, will prevent time-wasters and those unsuitable to IT industry work from embarking on a course.

Mike Boreham, head of product management at reseller Info Products, believes the CRT initiative is not only a step in the right direction, but it should be taken further. He says: 'There was a time in the 80s when a lot of senior and experienced IT people were laid off in favour of younger staff.

I think there is a potentially large pool of older people who already have experience in the IT industry to be pulled back in.'

Boreham adds: 'There are plenty of older people from other industries and sectors who could be usefully retrained. For example, an ex-teacher could make a good help-desk operator.

'The most important issue is not whether they understand IT, but whether they have the communication skills to help those who phone in with problems.

If the industry shifts its focus away from IT experience as a primary requirement to specific skills requirements, there is an enormous number of potential employees out there.'

Wirszycz emphasises the need for more IT organisations to take an active approach to wider recruitment. 'The skills shortage will not go away,' he says, 'and more IT companies will have to follow CRT's lead and design job training so that those without an IT background but with the necessary skills, are given a chance.'

After all, adds Wirszycz, the IT industry is no longer a peripherals sector in the UK. 'It's a major industry and the idea that it only accommodates IT professionals is just absurd.

'With the shortfall between demand and graduates, and the wide range of jobs on offer, it's incumbent on all the recruitment and training organisations to look beyond the historic channels and find new profiles of trainees.' Wirszycz says: 'Those who criticise the CRT initiative are probably its competitors - probably irritated that they have not made a similar announcement.'

'The only ones who are unhappy with our announcement are our competitors,' says Edwards, 'but they are bound to, aren't they. Everyone else, including government minister Barbara Roche, thinks it's a good idea.

'Some people are annoyed because we are actually trying to do something positive about the skills shortage, unlike others who are just complaining about there not being enough people available.

'Of course there are enough people available, if you screen them properly and train them adequately,' he says. Furthermore, we have been recruiting and training people without an IT background for quite a while now - we have proved it can work. The only difference between what we've been doing and what we plan to do is the scale in which we plan to do it.'

With more than 200 offices and training establishments around the country, CRT looks set to capitalise on turning the obvious into a business opportunity. That, it would seem, is the main lesson to be learned from its Career IT initiative, not the fact that a background in IT is not essential in computer recruitment.