Closing the Skills Gap Between Higher Ed and the Workforce

Prospective IT employees often have difficulty entering the workforce due to the gap between the skills required to land an IT job and the currently available educational opportunities that provide a baseline of skills and knowledge that could be transferred to a functional role. This can also prevent them from succeeding in their chosen career paths.

One thing that applicants can do to stand out, especially in the IT industry, is to obtain certifications.

To help students gain the skills they need for entry into an IT career, Wake Technical Community College and Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, have partnered on a new workforce development training program to offer students Red Hat Certification.

“We’re pleased to collaborate with Wake Tech to bring Red Hat Training and Certification to its students,” said Karl Reynolds, senior director of global learning services at Red Hat. “With this new offering, we are helping to address the skills gap in the local community and enable students to keep up with the rapid pace of innovation in the technology industry.”

Higher education institutions have increasingly created such corporate partnership programs, giving students access to potential employers. But companies who enter the partnerships without a strategic plan, such as a training or certification program, often struggle to establish and run the partnerships effectively, according to research from MIT Sloan Management Review.

How Red Hat Training Helps Advance Careers

The Wake Tech and Red Hat program, which begins in August 2021, consists of a course focused on the Red Hat Certified Systems Administrator certification. It is scoped as a four-month, non-degree course that is available online, in-person, or as a hybrid, and has two parts: Red Hat System Administration I and Red Hat System Administration II.

The Wake Tech and Red Hat program is also designed to help current IT professionals advance in their careers. For example, Red Hat certified IT infrastructure teams were found to be 34% more efficient after completing Red Hat training, according to a recent International Data Corporation (IDC) study.

Those with the certification will be able to perform the core system administration skills required in Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments, which is a key platform in the industry to understand. More than 90% of Fortune 500 companies rely on Red Hat technologies in one form or another.

Revamping College Career Center Services

To help students better prepare for the workforce post-college, universities need to transform services offered by their career center to meet the changing needs of the workforce and their students.

In fact, just 17% of graduates reported that their university career services office was very helpful, according to a 2016 Gallup poll.

In addition to gaining the Red Hat Certified Systems Administrator certification, students who successfully complete the course will be offered career counseling, networking and mentoring opportunities, and invitations to lectures and other events through Red Hat.

Restructuring career services with strategic partnerships and programs can help increase awareness, prompting more students to use those services; and increase engagement among students interested in a particular program.

To learn more about the Wake Technical Community College and Red Hat collaboration, read Red Hat’s blog on the announcement.