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The International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals (ICMCP) is working with SkillSmart, a skills-based platform, to increase efforts to address the gross underrepresentation of women and minorities in the Cybersecurity industry.  Cybersecurity is a serious economic and national security challenge, yet tens of thousands of critical jobs in this field are unfilled due to a lack of qualified applicants. This new partnership will allow qualified women and minority candidates to more readily display their skills to get hired today and will help to create a pipeline of prospective candidates to fill the backlog of open jobs.

Founded by Jason Green and Mike Knapp, SkillSmart is a tech-enabled, skills-based platform that helps growing organizations and industries find and develop the talent they need by matching job seekers to employment opportunities based on skills and abilities. SkillSmart creates a pipeline of qualified workers and helps prospective employees gain the skills they need. Recognizing the challenge that many employers face when seeking qualified and skilled talent, particularly for technical and STEM positions, this platform directly connects the three key stakeholders of today’s workforce: employers, job seekers and educators – creating transparency in the talent acquisition process and enabling job seekers to better understand the various cybersecurity opportunities and pathways. In return, employers can identify a stronger pool of candidates.

Current partners leveraging the SkillSmart platform include MGM National Harbor, MGM Springfield, the Milwaukee Bucks, Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corp., Springfield Public Schools in Springfield, MA, and the Chesapeake Regional Tech Council, in addition to others.

“We are very excited to work with ICMCP during this growth phase of their organization,” said Mike Knapp CEO of SkillSmart. “As ICMCP develops, it’s being recognized as leading voice and destination for issues related to Cybersecurity career and industry developments impacting minority Cybersecurity professionals. We are ecstatic about this engagement, and are looking forward to working with the ICMCP team!”

SkillSmart’s user-friendly interface enables candidates to build a skills profile identifying the proficiencies and qualifications they have, regardless of where they were developed. SkillSmart’s proprietary algorithm then calculates a fit score for each candidate, and the skills profile then helps an organization filter a candidate pool down to the top qualified candidates and demonstrates which are the best fit.

“ICMCP’s mission is to promote public awareness of cybersecurity and opportunities for minorities within the profession.  Our partnership with SkillSmart provides a strong foundation to gather and disseminate job openings within the cybersecurity industry,” says Aric K. Perminter, President at ICMCP.  “This partnership directly supports ICMCP’s expressed purpose of “Bridging The Great Minority Cybersecurity Divide.” Launched in 2014, ICMCP is based in North Haledon, NJ. The mission of ICMCP targets minority cyber security professionals worldwide and promotes academic and technical excellence in the industry.

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About SkillSmart

SkillSmart is a skills-based, tech-enabled platform that helps growing organizations and industries find the talent they need by matching job seekers to employment opportunities based on skills and abilities. To accomplish this, SkillSmart partners with companies from a variety of industries and provides access to their proprietary technology to allow them to search and filter through a pipeline of qualified candidates. SkillSmart’s mission is to end the skills gap that employers face in filling various roles.

About ICMCP

The International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals (ICMCP) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. It began official operations in September 2014 and is organized exclusively for charitable purposes, to provide members with educational/technical scholarships, mentoring opportunities, professional development and networking opportunities. For more information or to become a sponsor, please visit https://icmcp.org, follow @ICMCP_ORG on Twitter or visit the ICMCP LinkedIn page.

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As youth growing up in the 21st century we are constantly bombarded with information that declares the importance of college. There are countless articles stating that we will make X amount of dollars more if we attend college or much less if we don’t.

But, I believe a deeper examination must be made for your individual needs. While I agree that attending college has its advantages, I do not believe that it is the only path to finding career success.

As I’ve gone through the college process I’ve learned that this old adage is true: “It’s not necessary what you know, but who you know.”

One of the great yet often overlooked advantages of going to college is the opportunity for networking.

As a student you can rub shoulders with individuals who can open doors for you after college. But, often times students don’t know this or take advantage of it. And while I can’t ignore that I found myself in this internship with SkillSmart because of an introduction made by one of my college professors, I know we’re likely in similar situations as college students: fifty thousand dollars in debt, impending graduation, and no firm job offer.

I must admit, however, that I didn’t know all the opportunities available to me without a college degree.

I didn’t know that I could study a craft and work my way up to the point where I could make a middle class salary within five years and much more beyond that. Compared to my present situation it almost seems like a no brainier.

So, to those of you who don’t have the resources or ambition to go to college, don’t buy into the rhetoric that it’s your only path for success.

Don’t feel lesser about yourself if you don’t strive for the badge of a 4 year degree. Because by pursuing in-demand skills outside of traditional academia, you have an opportunity to make more money in a shorter time than by earning a college graduate.

And companies like SkillSmart are designed to help you succeed, they create opportunities for the career path that’s right for you – and your skills.

Here’s to us all finding our right path to success!

Read More about Middle Skills

Emily Moore’s Glassdoor article “7 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Accepting A Job Offer” provides an individual with several reasonable questions that one should ponder prior to accepting a position.

We started analyzing the article last time, and the themes of foresight and research prior to acceptance seemed to ring throughout the article. Within the second part of our assessment these themes continue to be reinforced as Moore helps a job seeker critically analyze whether they should accept a position. Moore asks the job seeker:

Does the company strive to improve?

While this question can be difficult for a prospective employee to answer, it can be extremely informative in gauging whether a position is worth taking.

If a company constantly gets negative reviews in a certain aspect it would be fairly safe to assume that they are not working to fix this problem, therefore why would you want to join a company where the chances experiencing this problem is rather high.

Another question which Moore arms the seeker with is:

Will you have room for growth?

As prospective employees, we would like the opportunity to climb the ladder within a company. Usually individuals believe that a good job deserves a reward, whether a raise or promotion. Whether one can advance through the ranks of a company should be something that will motivate one to accept a position.

Moore’s next question is another which requires independent research and foresight.

How is the company actually doing financially?

There’s nothing worse than accepting a position, enjoying it and then being laid off within a year because the company has fallen on hard times. But most importantly, Moore’s final question is an internal one for consideration.

Do you really want the position?

Moore brings up a really astute point that we will work for about ⅓ of our lives. Is a higher salary really worth unhappiness? While this may sound almost laughable to some individuals, we are supposed to have some level of enthusiasm for our jobs. That is something that can only be marginally increased by the size of one’s salary.

Good luck in your search, and let us know how it goes!

Read the Article Share Your Best Advice

As a job seeker it sometimes seems as if an opportunity will never come your way. This desperation can sometimes lead one to take advantage of any job opportunity, even when the offer is not the right one to take.

In the article “7 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Accepting A Job Offer” Glassdoor’s Emily Moore helps the reader to decide if a job is the right situation for one’s self by asking 7 questions which help to gage whether a job opportunity is right for them.

This week we will analyze Moore’s first three questions. Firstly, Moore asks the question that a job seeker would probably be most interested in.

Are you being offered fair compensation?

Sometimes we so badly want an opportunity that we may settle for less than we deserve. Moore wants the reader to ask themselves if they are being compensated fairly for what is expected from them as a worker. Also if you are over qualified for a position, and still are being offered less than market value this is also a problem.

Moore’s second and third questions are ones that some employees seldom seriously think about prior to taking a position.

Do employees generally stick around for a while?

If one is thinking about accepting a position with a company with high turnover then one should proceed with an air of skepticism. What could cause high turnover? Is it discontent, or do employees use this opportunity as a stepping ladder to another company? These are questions that one must consider prior to acceptance.

Do you like your potential manager?

In most cases a manager can become a deciding factor in how one views their job. A good manager could help boost job production, and create a positive atmosphere in the workplace. Conversely, a boss who is not well liked can create a negative environment, decrease worker efficiency, and entice one to search for other opportunities.

Good luck in your search, and let us know how it goes!

Read the Article Share Your Best Advice

In our last article, we dove into part 2 of our analysis of J. Maureen Henderson’s Forbes.com article “Bad Career Advice Is Everywhere — Here’s How To Avoid It.”

Today’s article, we take on her final question.

How invested is the person offering advice?

Henderson asks whether the advice you’re receiving is personalized. She notes that the more invested a source is in a your success, the less likely are to give you generic or selfish advice.

Henderson’s question reminds us that this is America and everyone has an agenda. One may give you advice that helps “their own ego, their wallet, their reputation.” It is up to the seeker to search through this bad advice to find useful help.

So, as you solicit and review the advice and feedback for your job search, be mindful of who you ask and whether their motivation is for your success (and not theirs).

Good luck in your search, and let us know how it goes!

Read the Article Share Your Best Advice

Published by Scott Paulus of Milwaukee Business Journal

The Milwaukee Bucks and the city of Milwaukee recently hosted the first in a series of town hall meetings to introduce prospective job seekers to the SkillSmart platform and potential work on the team’s $500 million arena in downtown Milwaukee. Check out the attached slideshow to see photos from the Dec. 15 meeting held at Journey House.

More than 100 city of Milwaukee residents attended the meeting. The NBA team, which is committed to the hiring of Milwaukee city and county residents for arena construction and the new arena district, contracted with SkillSmart of Germantown, Md., to create a pipeline of qualified workers and help prospective employees gain skills they will need for future employment.

As part of the Bucks development agreement with the city, the team’s owners pledged to partner with the city and county on workforce development initiatives. The Bucks also committed to meeting the city’s requirement of hiring 40 percent of trade workers who are city residents for arena construction.

The arena is under construction just north of the BMO Harris Bradley Center near West Juneau Avenue. It is set to be completed in time for the team’s 2018-’19 season.

The SkillSmart site breaks down available positions in terms of necessary skills and prerequisites, while inviting job seekers to build a personal profile based around their work experience, training and qualifications. The tool provides job seekers with scores for each available position based upon how well their skill set and qualifications align with a job.

Locations for additional town hall meetings will become available in the coming weeks.

Read the Article

Last time we started our review of analyzing J. Maureen Henderson’s Forbes.com article “Bad Career Advice Is Everywhere — Here’s How To Avoid It,” starting with “Does this advice reflect my own priorities?” This time we will look over Henderson’s second question.

Is this a trusted, qualified source?

Within this idea Henderson challenges her audience to examine the credentials of your source. Within the “post factual” era of information it is important to ask one’s self if the information one reads is actually useful, up to date, and correct.

Henderson tries to explain this to the reader by using an entertainment parallel. Would we treat an individual’s Amazon review of a book with the same respect as we would with LA Review of Books, most likely we would not.

Henderson also uses a common family situation to explain how quickly information can become outdated. It is not uncommon for parents to push their children into certain fields. The legal field is not only seen as a field of prestige but one in which an individual can reap huge financial rewards. But after the 2007 recession it has become an oversaturated field with few opportunities for even the most qualified individuals.

So, if one advises you to go into a field and cites guaranteed financial gain you can probably assume that (unless they are an job analyzer) their information is outdated.

Next time we will wrap up our dissection of Henderson’s article by analyzing her final question topic:

How invested is the person offering advice?

Read the Article Share Your Best Advice

As 2016 draws to a close it is good to reflect on those things that worked well, and those that didn’t achieve all that you’d hoped in an effort to improve on them in the coming year. We were pleased to to be able to support our clients in their pursuit of hiring a diverse, talented and qualified workforce, and to support thousands of job seekers in their pursuit of new growth opportunities. We saw the results of this effort with the opening of MGM National Harbor on December 8. An amazing new facility bringing economic growth to Prince Georges County, MD and the Washington, DC region and more than 4,000 outstanding new employees meeting the exciting challenges of a new job opportunity.  This is just one example of how SkillSmart’s skills-based hiring platform and community building skills can really make a difference in increasing economic opportunity.

Candidly, as we look at things that haven’t worked as well, we struggle to understand why so many organizations continue to beat their head against the wall by pursuing the same hiring strategies that haven’t worked for decades rather than explore new approaches to build a more qualified workforce. We will be working very hard in 2017 to share the results of our efforts with our growing client base to help organizations overcome their fear of change and minimize their frustration with the skills gap to increase opportunities for growth.

We at SkillSmart want to thank you for your continued support and wish you peace and prosperity during this holiday season and the coming year.

Best wishes,
Mike, Jason and the SkillSmart Team

Read More

In this era of Internet accessibility it is easy for anyone to have a voice. Current events have shown that manipulated information can have an effect on national events, therefore it is no surprise that bias or non factual articles could affect one’s job search.

Within the article “Bad Career Advice Is Everywhere — Here’s How To Avoid It,” J. Maureen Henderson attempts to help job seekers surf through the waste to find relevant job seeking advice.

Within the next few articles, we will delve into the three questions Henderson uses to check the validity of an article, in order to see if the sources we use can be reliable.

Firstly, Henderson asks:

Does this advice reflect my own priorities?

Henderson points out that while a company may be lowly rated in one aspect a seeker should not rule them out if that aspect doesn’t apply to their possible career path. Henderson explains this by saying to the reader that a company who has bad reviews by those who work at home shouldn’t deter one who likes working in an office from applying because those factors do not apply to them. Those who do not thrive in homework will not be affected by the company’s limitations therefore this information is irrelevant.

In short, one shouldn’t let just any bad information be a reflection of the whole.

Next time we will analyze Henderson’s second question:

Is this a trusted, qualified source?

Read the Article Share Your Best Advice