Janet Pinkerton Posts

High school sophomores from Louisiana and Arkansas participate in a robotics challenge during the 2012 Cyber Discovery Camp at Louisiana Tech University. How can America better interest its youth in IT careers? Although nearly all of teens and young adults report they "love" or "like" technology, only 18 percent say they have a "definite interest" in an IT career. These findings from CompTIA's recent study "Youth Opinions of Careers in Information Technology" point to a career interest ga ...

Before you head into your next IT job interview, check out these common IT job interview mistakes to learn how to avoid them. Hiring professionals from IT staffing firms TEKsystems and Robert Half Technology, as well as companies in the telcom and energy industries, told CompTIA their solutions for how candidates can stay clear of common IT job interview pitfalls.  Mistake #1: Not researching your prospective employer ahead of the interview. Solution:  Always visit the company's w ...

Aaron Woods For Aaron Woods, director of Xerox Corp's North American Reseller Relationships and Partnership programs, information technology has been his ticket to a long and satisfying career. But at first, IT was simply his way out of a boring Army job. Newly enlisted in the Army in 1967, Woods expected to be sent to finance school after basic training. But thanks to a military paperwork snafu, he wound up a clerk typist. “That's not something I wanted to do forever,” Woods recalls. S ...

John Mehrmann The powers of technology and human motivation have been central to John Mehrmann's decades-long career. When he started as a service operations manager at Toshiba America Consumer Products in 1986, business was done via fax machine and maybe a personal AOL email account. Advancing to progressively more responsible roles within Toshiba's service operations, Mehrmann latched onto new technologies to develop websites, implement call centers, automate business processes, and integr ...

Jeremiah Gaches, Project HIRED Warrior Workforce client and decorated Army veteran, is now able to return to work in an office environment, thanks to support services from Project HIRED and its Wounded Warrior Workforce Service Dog Program. With the support of his canine partner, Rocky, Gaches now lives independently and holds a position through a Project HIRED AbilityOne contract for call center services at the Livermore, CA VA Medical facility. Companies looking for qualified IT job appli ...

CompTIA will add performance-based questions to its CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+ and CompTIA Security+ certification exams in the coming months.Performance-based questions require exam candidates to perform a task or solve a problem within a simulated IT environment to demonstrate specific knowledge or skills. Currently, the three exams employ only multiple-choice questions.The CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP) exam, introduced in September 2011, was the first CompTIA exam to employ ...

Veterans and transitioning military members interested in building a career in IT after their service in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars can use their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to pay for IT training and certification. Since October 2011, the benefits can be used to pay for IT training via non-college degree training programs, as well as graduate and undergraduate degree programs. Here's how to do it. A veteran's best source of information about the Post 9/11 GI Bill is the U.S. Department of ...

CompTIA will add performance-based questions to its CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+ and CompTIA Security+ certification exams in the coming months. Performance-based questions require exam candidates to perform a task or solve a problem within a simulated IT environment to demonstrate specific knowledge or skills. Currently, the three exams employ only multiple-choice questions. The CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP) exam, introduced in September 2011, was the first CompTIA exam to ...

So you are aiming for an entry-level IT job. Do you know what that entails? An IT Help Desk or Tech Support role can be very different depending on the size, structure and culture of the company. Below is a snapshot of three opportunities on the market. Tier 1 Help Desk/Desktop Support Contract worker employed by Randstad Technologies (IT staffing and recruitment agency) at an enterprise-sized client company with 1,000 or more employees. Required skill-set, work experience and/or credentials: ...

CompTIA will make minor changes to the CompTIA Linux+ Powered by LPI exams this fall. The objective changes are reflected in the current exam objectives available for download and will be reflected in both CompTIA Linux+ exams, LX0-101 and LX0-102, by the end of August 2012. The CompTIA Linux+ Powered by LPI exam is a high-stakes, vendor-neutral certification that validates the fundamental knowledge and skills required of junior Linux administrators. The certification is the result of CompTIA ...