Over the weekend, the News & Observer published an article that addressed two important topics with respect to the IT industry and the field of online information technology training. It pointed out, first of all, that women are still significantly under-represented in computing careers. Specifically, they comprise about 26 percent of the jobs in the field, nationwide. But there are a number of ventures and organizations pushing to open up the field to female aspirants, by giving them more opportunities for formal and informal information technology training, online and offline.
This is the other major focus of the article, and it is relevant not only to the prospect of training women, but also to the general goal of opening up the field to people who want to pursue online information technology training but don’t know where to look, or need additional social resources in order to obtain effective results. While the News & Observer puts the emphasis on one nationwide network called Girl Develop It, that venture is clearly only one of several that are available to women and men, to the young and the old, to established professionals and amateurs who don’t know the first thing about a training and development specialist’s job description.
There are more and more resources available out there for in-person and online IT training, either regarding general skills or on specific topics like ITIL training and PMP training. This is certainly good news for you if you’re reading this blog because you’re looking for online information technology training in order to jump-start your career. But it’s also good news for us, as an online IT training consultancy and a would-be competitor of some of these programs.
Certainly, there are plenty of options for you in terms of obtaining information technology training online, in a classroom, or even in a café somewhere. But the thing is, that those options are still far away from outpacing the amount of demand or the range of different IT skills that you may need in order to compete in the modern job market, especially if you’re a woman struggling to break into an industry where your gender is still outnumbered by about three to one.
The News & Observer article points out that the Girl Develop It classes have a tendency to fill up. And there’s little doubt that this is also the case for classes offered by other, similar organizations. Furthermore, while the article makes it clear that GDI deal with general coding and topics like java, it doesn’t seem like they also offer CSM training or CSPO training, much less CBAP certification training.
That said, the article notes that GDI does deal in topics like salary negotiation, which are unlikely to appear in online information technology training courses that focus solely on technical skills and procedures.
All of this helps to highlight the fact that the abundance of in-person and online information technology training is a potential instance of a rising tide lifting all ships. As long as you’re choosing the best program in each area, as well as the program that best accommodates your schedule and personal needs, you can utilize a combined regimen of classroom and online information technology training to raise your professional marketability very quickly, even if you have no educational background in the field.