CompTIA: School careers days have 'zero impact' on IT skills gap

CEO Todd Thibodeaux claims long-term projects including tech role models are the best answer to solving skills crisis

One-day career days or school talks are having "zero impact" on plugging the IT skills gap, according to CompTIA's CEO Todd Thibodeaux (pictured), who said longer-term projects involving tech role models would work better.

Many technology professionals across the industry go into schools to talk up the benefits of a career in tech through larger projects or under their own steam. But Thibodeaux says the risk with this strategy is that the next day, another speaker from another industry might come in and do the same thing.

"Those things have zero impact," he told CRN today at CompTIA's EMEA member conference. "We have been doing those things forever and they have no impact at all.

"What has impact is that someone knows a friend or relative or someone they did an internship with. We've taught kids what they would be doing in a job; we've not been telling them why we love our jobs. We have to do a much better job of expressing why we love what we do. That's the part a role model plays. It's not just a one-day or a one-week thing, it's a multi-year thing. If you want kids to pay attention, you have to have constant interaction with them. It won't happen overnight, it will happen over a period of years."

He added that while it is important to introduce children to the idea of a career in IT from a young age, they are unlikely to make any concrete decisions until later on.

"Kids are delaying their career decisions into way into college or university," he said. "So the things you do in high school aged 12 to 16 years old, they're not having any impact. We should target them with long-term engagement with role models. It has to be something where at 12 or 13 they interact with a role model, over a period of years. We need to keep more top of mind over a longer period of time."

CompTIA itself has created in-school projects aimed at encouraging kids - especially girls - into tech. But Thibodeaux admitted he is sceptical about their long-term impact.

"We did Dream IT and we're questioning whether that has any ongoing value - going in and doing one or two engagements in schools," he said. "It's about how we can use that programme to have an ongoing engagement with those people."

Thinking outside the box

Last month, recruiter Robertson Sumner said that as the skills gap intensifies, many resellers are looking outside the IT sector for staff, with estate agents and other sales professionals being targeted.

Thibodeaux agreed that this is a good plan, and said even non-sales workers such as hairdressers might slot well into the channel.

"Soft skills are harder to acquire so looking in other places is important - an estate agent, someone who has worked in a salon, or wherever."

Referring to hairdressers, he said: "They might have just as much aptitude and clearly they are good with their hands and have to deal with people and meet expectations. It is a high-pressure situation.

"The importance of soft skills is big. We're doing a pilot here with veterans and it is proof that in eight weeks you can take someone who has no IT knowledge and make them capable of working on a helpdesk or being a part of a technical team. Instead of looking for the traditional person who comes from a computer background and is a geek, [we need to look elsewhere]. That's the only way we can help solve the pipeline issue.

"We're not going to solve the tech skills shortage with young, white men. There are not enough of them to solve the issue. The industry is facing huge, huge retirements. We always had this big pipeline of people who wanted to work in tech and the pipeline is shrinking relative to what we need. But tech is proliferating into so many other different industries that if you want to work in tech, you don't have to work for a tech company. In the past you did."