WIP Todd Thibodeaux

Why can’t we fill all the tech jobs out there?

A conversation with Todd Thibodeaux, president & CEO, CompTIA
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In this episode of Work in Progress, CompTIA president and CEO Todd Thibodeaux discusses the continuing unmet high demand for tech talent across all industries and what is stopping more people from taking the career plunge.

There are about 10 million people in the tech industry in the U.S.

Half work for full-on tech companies, but sometimes not even in a tech role – think customer service, administration, finance, sales, etc. The other half fill tech roles – IT, data analysis, cybersecurity, etc. – at companies in which technology is not their core business.

Despite the recent wave of “big tech” layoffs, many employers are still desperate for tech talent, according to Thibodeaux.

“We see all over the world, there are just big gaps in talent pools where companies need more people. It’s not just the big-name companies. That’s the misnomer about tech employment. A lot of times, the media will focus on Silicon Valley and use that as a proxy for the tech industry and employment,” Thibodeaux tells me.

“You see some layoffs – which are happening in some companies now – and you’re starting to see some people slowing their hiring. That’s not the case in the rest of the tech employment space. You have lots of medium- and small-sized companies who are dying for talent, and they’re not slowing down their hiring at all,” he adds.

The Confidence Gap

Thibodeaux says the demand for tech workers is strong, but there is still not enough workers to fill those open jobs.

“The tech industry has the largest confidence gap of probably any industry. People are looking at it and saying, ‘I can’t do that job. I don’t have the skills. I don’t have all the things that people are telling me I need to have.'”

He says that the opposite is true. It’s probably one of the more accessible careers, he argues.

“When you get into the right kind of training, when you get into the right kind of learning environment, the skills can be acquired relatively quickly. In less than nine months, you can be prepared to start in a lot of these entry-level tech jobs and even some of the medium ones as well,” says Thibodeaux.

The interview talks more on how to get the skills for the most in-demand tech jobs.

You can listen to the conversation here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 233: Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO, CompTIA
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa Panzer
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0

Download the transcript here.
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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.