How to Miss the Talent You Need

<ed.note>Saw this article at and I just had to rant.</ed.note>

Thought 1: It is interesting to hear CIOs write about the lack of business savvy in the IT offerings in higher education when in fact CIOs are getting exactly what they are incenting. When a law firm wants a lawyer or the NIH wants a researcher what do they do? Educational Loan Forgiveness. What do CIOs do to a student just out of university? Force them to move to the areas of the country with the most inflated real estate costs while ratcheting down entry level salaries by globalizing services. This doesn’t happen at the CIO level so they are out of touch with the fact that it no longer makes business sense to go into IT unless you go directly into a Director level position.

Thought 2: Tangentially, this real estate "geolock" occurs at a time when we have robust technology to promote the adoption of remote employees. We hear all the political rhetoric about high gasoline prices and the instability it causes the economy but neither political parties ( or their business members ) make mention of the national economic security benefits of having a more virtual workforce which isn’t wasting productive time and unnecessary fuel to commute to a computer which they can access from their home offices. Neither are mentioned the untapped "invisible" workforces ( like the unemployed 70 % of persons with disabilities who can’t afford accessible transportation { think "geolock" } but who could work with assistive technology equipped home offices — if CIOs didn’t write them off completely — or is it that they are just ignorant of this potential resource? ).

Thought 3: How many CIOs make use of standards like HR-XML’s to determine competencies and support assessment in university before the students enter the job market? Anyone care to do the survey?

Thought 4: Maybe it isn’t just the tech candidates who lack the business savvy…