Dive Brief:
- As the shortage of IT skills continues, alternative education and training solutions may be the best strategy for quickly producing talented IT workers, according to CIO.
- Alternative methods are often cheaper and faster than traditional four-year degrees.
- Because the industry changes quickly, four-year degrees are not always the optimal choice for people going into the IT industry.
Dive Insight:
Alternative approaches like bootcamps, MOOCs, certificates and nanodegrees can help companies close the IT skills gap and allow professionals to get the expertise they need without the high costs or long-term commitment.
"That's the major issue in IT today -- companies need people with these new and emerging skills, like data science and UX, but people can't get the skills fast enough because of time, money and training constraints," said Gautam Tambay, CEO of Springboard, an online educational institution concentrating on data science and UX design, in an interview with CIO.
Millennials are driving the popularity of these alternative educational methods, said Tambay.
“Instead of moving up the corporate ladder at one or two firms, the younger generation of professionals use job-hopping as a way to advance themselves professionally,” he said.
Alternative methods of IT education and training allow millennials looking for a change to learn new skills and make the shift to a new career much faster.
