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Employer Quotes
The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Information Technology (IT)
They are talking about this topic: Experience & Credentials
The quotes below are about this issue:
Employers emphasize they can provide extensive on-the-job training for new hires to ensure competency in the specific programs used within their sector of the industry. Therefore, a basic skill set is more important than vendor-specific certifications.
| "They never have all the right skills. I mean, they have the basic skills that they need, and the technical understanding of certain things. But many things are learned through on-the-job training. They have the basic skills they need and the rest comes with experience as they work in the job." | Southwest |
| "Once they have that basic understanding and that skill set, then the on-the-job training is what we need them to have." | Southwest |
| "You have to have broad knowledge and experience. So, you cross-train into other areas and fields, particularly the higher-skilled people." | Southwest |
| "From my perspective, again depending on the type of individual you're looking for, they have the basic skills required and then, from that point, there's a lot of on-the-job training. They are generally assigned to work with an experienced employee and they learn as they go. We cannot send an inexperienced technician out to work on a customer's network and risk it going out of service. So, they have to train with those individuals and understand how things work and interact before they are allowed to work on their own." | Southwest |
| "We deal with all different types of equipment in the central office. There's any number of vendors that design a piece of equipment that can do the same thing, but it has different ways of operating, different ways of being provisioned. The experience comes from working in the various systems and understanding how to provision those without taking it out of service. So, you might be working with a Metaswitch here, you might be working with a Cisco device here, and you might be working with an Alcatel-Lucent device here. So, the experience comes with understanding all the various systems and how to work with them. Not all those skills are taught coming out of a technical program. They've had some hands-on experience, but not necessarily with all the different devices that are out there." | Southwest |
| "They have a general understanding of IT and the basics, I guess. They understand how the various players and the network work. But they may not understand how to go out and provision an Ethernet interface in an Alcatel-Lucent device. Those are the hands-on experiences that they have to learn and understand." | Southwest |