While state IT academies already exist for mid-career employees, and state agencies are reaching out to high schools and universities such as CSU Sacramento, UC Davis and Cal Poly, the Department of Technology's (CDT) Office of Professional Development is still open to vendor partnerships.
CDT also hosts an apprenticeship program that retrains current employees for technology positions.
State CIO Amy Tong told Techwire in an interview this week that the rotation of employees between the public sector and private industry is healthy for networking and talent building.
"We are trying to advocate that public and private should be working together as partners," Tong said. "Talent is talent. It doesn't matter what role you serve, as long as people understand the mission they are serving is going to benefit the people of California."
State IT leaders have already begun scouting talent from the private sector. Ralph Cesena, CIO of the state Department of Managed Health Care, is looking to build two divisions — a Business Intelligence Division and an Information Security team — and is open to candidates from inside the state or from the private sector. In an interview at last week's Cybersecurity Education Summit in Sacramento, Cesena told Techwire that his search is ongoing.
Cesena himself is an example of an IT executive who joined state government mid-career, about seven months ago, after years in the private sector.
The state's overall workforce programs are split into three groups:
- Employees new to the workforce;
- Mid-career employees looking to improve specific skills;
- Employees moving into IT careers from other state roles.
So far, CDT works with Cisco for a network apprenticeship; IBM to support Mainframe University; Microsoft and Amazon, in the Digital Services Academy; and VMware in the California Innovation Lab.