Missouri Innovations Campus

President Obama made his way to Warrensburg this summer to highlight the Missouri Innovation Campus, a great program made possible by UCM, Lees Summit R-7, and a number of area employers.  As a parent of an R-7 student in his sophomore year we are going to give this program some serious consideration.

College students take on enormous debt to complete a degree and it’s refreshing to see creative alternatives being promoted to help our students become high achievers in the STEM disciplines.  I’d much rather see our government promote programs like this rather than quibble about the amount of interest to charge a 23 year old General Studies graduate on a $70k loan.

This program is a good experiment to solve a long term issue.  Still the overall employment debate continues as many technical people fear their job being sent overseas. The jury is still out on what impact off-shoring jobs will have in the long term, but some pundits believe there’s going to be a shortage of “homegrown” STEM graduates which is one of the reasons I’m very excited about the Missouri Innovation Campus.

While long term issues are being discussed, it does not address the near term talent shortage.  Many developers with a background on legacy platforms (Mainframe, FoxPro, Delphi, AS400/iSeries, etc..) hear about a high demand for developers, yet they get the cold shoulder from potential employers.  These are highly skilled and trained professionals who are more than capable of re-tooling to a current platform. 

I sincerely believe this is a heavily under-utilized talent pool.  With organizations focused on attracting and retaining "market ready" talent there are many who have been in the trenches for years that could easily be productive employees within a relatively short period of ramp up time.

Unfortunately time and money are the two biggest hurdles a job seeker with an out of date skill set faces.  I think many organizations are in a Catch 22 situation - they have been cutting budgets and resources forcing them to do more with less.  The systems they used to have in place to bring someone up to speed have broken down.  There are others who have urgent needs and don't have the time to ramp someone up. 

However, I think we are getting to a tipping point.  Here at RiverPoint we’ve seen a tremendous uptick in inbound activity.  Companies are calling us because they haven’t been able to fill full time jobs.  People who have been chipping away at the stone are finding opportunities.

I think that is a good sign for the coming months.  Demand for technology jobs is not going away anytime soon and I believe the pool of talent will continue to shrink creating opportunities to re-enter the technology field.