[TriLUG] Training for Laid-Off Techies

[Adalita Brown]

Hi all,

My husband would like to share with laid-off techies about the Workforce
Investment Act (WIA).  This is an opportunity to get government funding for
your computer training and/or certification.

-adalita


> If you are a laid off developer such as myself :-(, or a techie in general,
>you might want to take
> the opportunity to get some professional training via the Workforce Investment
> Act (WIA) to enhance your résumé: Here is the official scoop on it:
> 
> http://www.joblinkcc.com/capitalarea/workforce_investment_act_program.htm
> http://www.ncesc.com/individual/training/trainingmain.asp
> 
> The short of it is the state has a federally-funded program to provide
> training funds for people such as ourselves, along with other classes of
> workers. You can get up $4000 to take training on various technologies. I
> know someone who used it to get training so as to become Cisco-certified. I
> have been working with Strategic Technologies in Cary (www.stratech.com) for
> some time to convince them they should be on the list of approved trainers,
> which they sort of are now... FYI Strategic Technologies is the official Sun
> training vendor here. They also do training for HP, Veritas, BMC & FileNET.
> You are not limited to using WIA funds on them, however. For a complete list
> of approved training providers, go to www.ncstars.org, click Public
> Access/Search NC STARS Programs then click Raleigh on the map and "Submit"
> as is on the next page. Then just look on the popup list on the page after
> that.
> 
> Basically, you go to the ESC office, bringing a lot of documentation, fill
> out a LOT of paperwork, wait until you are called by a WIA screener for an
> interview, then wait to see if your application forwarded to Raleigh is
> approved by the Capital Board. Once approved, you get a voucher which you give
> to the training provider to pay for your course. Note, you can't just have
> been laid off. You have to prove you have been looking for work quite some
> time, for example. Still, take a look/see to find out if you qualify.
> 
> If you are interested in training at Strategic Technologies, my contacts
> there are Trish Witek (trish.witek at stratech.com) and Marc Sodano
> (marc.sodano at stratech.com). Please be sure to tell them how you heard about
>it.
> If you have any other questions, I've added a section to help people at my
> personal site:
> 
> home.earthlink.net/~pathogen
> (Click on the WIA link)
> 
> Ciao, Dev