Bluewolf launches job initiative to train more IT, business professionals
Business consulting firm Bluewolf is aiming to help tackle the unemployment rate in the United States with a new initiative: a role-based public training program for IT and business professionals.
With its timely announcement during Dreamforce 2011 in San Francisco this week, the courses are primarily focused on teaching skills required to work for Salesforce.
Part of the inspiration for this program stems from a recent report from McKinsey & Company that attests that the U.S. must create 21 million new jobs this decade to return employment back to pre-recession levels. But Bluewolf's vice president of marketing Corinne Sklar notes that there is a "talent gap" in America and that we don't have enough people with the expertise for a number of roles.
Sklar cited Salesforce as an example of a company that is willing to significantly boost its employee base, but can't find enough qualified applicants. During the company's quarterly investors call earlier this month, Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said that Salesforce has "very aggressive plans" to take "onboard a huge number of employees in the next two quarters."
Thus, Bluewolf's training program will offer standard and customized role-based training courses for administrators and developers as well as management, marketing and sales professionals. Some of the workshops include:
- Role-Based Classroom Training: Targets different functions and skill-sets within an organization. For example: Salesforce Administrator training.
- Bluewolf Office Hours: Based on Apple's Genius Bar model, trainees will receive one free hour per week for up to three months of free one-on-one sessions with a Bluewolf expert on Salesforce after they have completed public training.
- eLearning: Delivers comprehensive content in real time by using short, digestible modular learning processes to ensure high user engagement, understanding and alignment with business instance and processes.
Sklar argues that most people can't find a course in colleges to do most of the stuff that Bluewolf will teach.
Training can be public or private, meaning that individuals can sign up themselves before applying to jobs, or companies can direct new hires to Bluewolf for the instruction they need. These courses will be in-person for the time being at locations in New York City, San Francisco and Minneapolis, among elsewhere.
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