Missed Opportunity
One of the major problems is that students are unaware of the variety and potential rewards associated with computer science and information systems-related occupations ("Talent Shortage? Employers Must Take Some Of The Rap," March 5). Employers need to get vocal in broadcasting their ongoing need for computer professionals! Most students coming into the university have no idea what a systems analyst or software engineer is, nor do they know that businesses have a shortage in these areas. High school guidance counselors and advisers seem to have seen the "outsourcing" headlines and decided all computing-related jobs have gone offshore.

In a recent survey, entering business school students readily acknowledged they had little knowledge or awareness of computing-related occupations. Furthermore, when asked to rank IS/IT jobs relative to jobs associated with other business majors, these students ranked IS and IT at the bottom in terms of job availability, salary, and other career opportunity categories. Their knowledge void is apparently filled with worst-case assumptions.

Dr. Tom Schambach
Associate Professor
College of Business
Illinois State University

Scared Off By Offshoring
The employers worrying about a shortage of IT talent are often the same ones that spent so much time touting the benefits of offshoring. That effort has paid off by impressing upon high school students that it's a dead-end career path. Why get a degree in computer science or IS when the jobs are going to India? I hear it all the time from students. These employers will need to spend as much, if not more, time impressing upon our youth that offshoring is not serious. Good luck with that. Every call you make to the tech vendors is answered by someone in Bangalore. I don't recommend that my kids go into IT, and I've been in it for 20 years and am paid well. If you scare them away from a career, you can't blame them for not coming back.

Dave Stein
IT Business Systems Manager
Company name withheld on request
Virginia Beach, Va.

Career Is What You Make It
I agree that employers must take some of the rap for the IT talent shortage, but I'm also hopeful that the media can start doing a better job of explaining why I can find literally hundreds of IT jobs going unfilled daily. (Just look at Dice.com.)

The daily doom and gloom of outsourcing, while it sells articles, isn't really where we are today. We could do a better job of informing people that while some IT jobs may be shifting, there's a critical shortage of people who have knowledge in every facet of the IT and business relationships. The shortage will continue to escalate until people acknowledge the fact that they really can have a career in IT if they want it.

IT is going through some strong change. It truly is a business-driven service, not an entity unto itself. IT exists to serve the business. That's the most important mind-set change that all IT employees need to acknowledge. I've been employed as a part of IT practically my whole career (35 years this September), and I'm NOT doing the same thing I started out doing in IT.

My point is, anyone who wants to evolve their career has the capability to do so. If you've defined and confined yourself to a narrow niche of IT, you just have to realize that models like the horse and buggy have a finite life cycle. You need to consider other forms of transportation and learn how to adjust your career to fit these new models of business. Only then can you begin to apply your expertise and knowledge in the "new age" of IT. I developed and teach IT service management in the MBA program at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., and would like to show those who want to learn new ways of applying IT how to go about doing it. There's still great opportunity in IT for those who want it.

Larry Killingsworth
IT Internal Process Development Lead
Company name withheld on request
Allentown, Pa.

Take The Long View
Talent shortage. Let's be honest--short-sighted is a better word. For the last few years, IT departments were able to choose from many candidates at lower levels until they found an exact fit. So they hired the square peg for the square hole to do the same things they had done before. The result: no growth, no stretch, no leaders, but very quick payback on the position they filled.

Now the complaint is that they don't have people with the strategic outlook or leadership skills they need. Sorry, guys, you can't have it both ways, and God forbid you even consider some of those older workers because their skill sets might be a little rusty. Those aging generalists learned lots of things before, but today learning and adaptability never show up on a hiring form.

Gary Guth
Partner, Crystal Falls Group
Highland Park, Ill.