Janet Pinkerton Posts

The only thing on this planet you can control is you: How you think, how you feel, how you react to situations and how you show up. Pattie Grimm, president and change leader, Advantage Performance & Training Ltd. The CompTIA Advancing Women in IT Community webinar was entitled "Be Strong … Stand Up … Stand Out - Quiet Women Never Changed History" but before unveiling her tips, presenter Pattie Grimm explained she hoped to help participants avoid or stop what she called "The Fall"— that ...

College of DuPage Professor Clyde Cox coaches students during CIT 1111, the college's Computer and Internetworking Technologies course that corresponds to the CompTIA A+ 220-701 exam. Ten years ago, the College of DuPage, in Glen Ellyn, Ill., began to redesign its computer hardware and networking curricula to embed the goals of IT industry certifications into the program. The college sought to grow the program by offering clearly defined ways for its diverse student population to gain IT ...

Several CompTIA exams now contain performance-based questions, which test an IT professional's ability to solve problems, in addition to the traditional multiple-choice format. We asked CompTIA authorized training and content partners how they're integrating this new format into their training, and how all students can best prepare for the new questions. Here is their advice. Know What to Expect Performance-based questions are included along with multiple-choice questions in the CompTIA Advanc ...

Initially, Just IT Founder and CEO Simon Perriton hesitated when his CompTIA partners suggested he expand his London-based IT training and recruitment business into the apprenticeship market. Just IT had benefited from CompTIA's discounted exam vouchers, marketing support and business advice for years, most recently through the CompTIA Authorized Partner Program, but Perriton was uncertain about how 16- to 18-year-old apprentices would perform in training and on the job. But when Just IT laun ...

Are you seeking to prove your technical knowledge and skill with cloud solutions? Consider earning the CompTIA Cloud+ certification when the exam launches in the third quarter of 2013. The vendor-neutral certification is ideal for system, network and storage administrators and network engineers with 24 to 36 months of experience with cloud technologies and infrastructure. If you aren't seeking to prove your cloud chops, you should be – for the sake of your own career growth. The job market incre ...

Managing your online image is important for job hunters, experts advise. "Let your public images be more professional and not open to misinterpretation," says Scot Melland, CEO of Dice Holdings. Google yourself. What do you find? Will it help you get your next job? If not, it's time to sharpen your online image. Human resource departments and staffing firms are increasingly going online to vet and find new employees. Scot Melland, CEO of Dice Holdings, says, "Managing your online persona ...

Tracy Bicknell-Holmes, professor and engineering librarian at University of Nebraska-Lincoln created an online image management microsite for UNL students and staff, but it's publicly available and you can use it to. Clicking through the tabs of Bicknell-Holmes' website, you will find: Slide, audio and video presentations about managing your online presence by a wide variety of experts Direct links to multiple search engines (including Twitter, Dogpile, Google Blogs, Social Mention, and beyond ...

John Hlavac, Tricia Wurts and Aaron Woods were honored for their work helping create the CompTIA A+ certification exam at the CompTIA Annual Member meeting in 2011. More than 925,000 people have earned the CompTIA A+ certification for IT technicians during the past 20 years, but the very first was Patrick Farley, a training systems developer for Compaq's server tech support, who was certified on March 19, 1993. "At the time, we hadn't focused on any PC certifications, just on a number o ...

Mike Dellacava Sr. Systems Engineer, Reflexion Networks Mike Dellacava didn't choose IT as a career. "It chose me," he believes. "I was formed along the way, as I learned to do what needed to be done. But I've been happy doing the work." Dellacava's father, a systems enterprise administrator and project manager, introduced him to computers, starting with an old 386, an early desktop PC. "I've been taking apart computers, building, breaking and fixing them since I was seven," says Dell ...

Pete Caro Senior IT Architect, IBM Fifteen years ago, Pete Caro had trouble breaking into the IT field, despite the fact he had multiple, college-level computer courses under his belt. So he joined the Army in 1998. There he steadily gained IT experience and expertise that enabled him to establish a successful civilian career in IT security and support the armed forces as an Army Reservist. Working IT in the Army, Caro, now 36, started out in mid-1999 as a systems administrator, doing Ti ...