Conquering Our Drupal Talent Shortage

Speaker(s): gwendolyn

The hunt for Drupal talent by government, not-for-profits and businesses is an ever-increasing priority that has reached the competition level of sales, and for most of us, the approach is similar (albeit not as successful.) There are thoughtful solutions we can employ to help our organizations now, and benefit the community down the road.  This session will cover creating Drupal Career Pathways and use examples to demonstrate how organizations can take advantage of internships, Career & Technical Training (CTE, ) the Workforce system, training resources, education outreach, on-boarding and training from within to provide solutions to our narrow Drupal talent benches.

Even though as a career, Drupal has a lot to offer (great salaries, a unique culture, many flexible work scenarios, and tremendous choices and opportunity) the level of interest in and pursuit of Drupal careers is lackluster. The problem has a lot to do with the fact that there are no clear, defined career paths that can be, or are promoted to get people interested; and most job opportunities that are widely promoted specifiy a lot of experience. What's more, since Drupal's open source culture is largely informal, there is no organized Drupal talent development movement because there are no widely accepted career pathways or internship/apprenticeship programs. 

There is no quick fix.  However, we can minimize the immediate pain and shorten this talent-deficit era.  We'll explain some proven strategies used in countless other industries that have recognized career options, as well as a few examples of successes from within the Drupal Community. We will discuss how organizations, with a moderate investment of time and/or resources, can help fill their talent needs using a variety of strategies that will also provide benefit to the community as a whole, and  the individuals seeking to become valuable members of it. 

Slideshttps://drive.google.com/file/d/0B24cYRgX7BDWaDE3QzRfLTliMmc/view

Audience
Experience Level
Beginner
Schedule Info
Conference Year
2016
Date / Time
Status
Accepted
Session Track
Community and Being Human