Dreamforce: In SF SalesForce.com Needs Consultants, In ATL, Job Fair Draws Thousands

At Dreamforce San Francisco, SalesForce.com’s effort to teach Salesforce users and developers about the benefits of cloud computing that’s underway at Moscone Center, Salesforce Senior Vice President of Worldwide Partners and Solutions Denzil Samuels used a lot of corporate bureaucratic buzzwords to basically say “We’ve got job openings are we’re hiring.”

And, from the looks of this Tout.com video, Moscone Center West was packed with attendees, and most, one presumes, are employed.

Meanwhile, in downtown Atlanta today, as this blogger was making videos for upcoming Atlanta VidBlogger shows on Camcast On Demand, streets were clogged with traffic.

Why?

A massive jobs fair held at Phillips Arena, where the Atlanta Hawks play basketball (when there’s no NBA Lockout). The event, called “Atlanta’s Job Fair for All,” drew thousands of people. Most, one presumes, are unemployed.

See the mismatch?

America’s greatest unemployment problem since the early days of the Reagan Administration (check it for yourself) is really a skills and training mismatch problem.

On the one hand, we have SalesForce.com’s Mr. Samuels saying “The need for the partners has become intense,” and complaining that, in so many words, the vast majority of people aren’t properly trained to be able to install the social enterprise systems it makes.

Based on SalesForce.com’s projected revenues for the next six months, it will have a shortage of 2,000 certified consultants in North America, not to mention more overseas, according to ZDNet.com.

So, there are jobs out there to be had. It’s not so much shortage of jobs – we do have a problem with plant closures to be sure – as a training crisis.

Job retraining and job placement are the objectives America has to focus on.

Stay tuned.

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