We’re having a great time putting together our Creative/Tech Career Jam, scheduled for January 26th in Burlington Vermont. This is a project that the Vermont Software Developers’ Alliance was especially interested in pursuing when we realized that we had a profound difference in perception about the whole job market in our local area.

On the one hand we heard from our vtSDA member companies, all of whom want to double their headcount in the next three-five years that there were no local employees available. On the other hand, we kept hearing from kids, colleges, and high-school guidance counselors that there were no local jobs available; once students received their training they needed to go to Boston, or Montreal, or Silicon Valley to get a decent-paying job as a software developer.

Turns out it isn’t just software companies confronting these issues, so we have teamed up with fifty companies, the colleges and high schools, for this event in January 2008.

There will be “green-technology” companies, including solar, wind and alternative energy companies, software and IT companies, high-tech manufacturing companies, computer game developers, musicians and ad agencies. Media coverage in print and VLOG will be provided by Seven Days, our local arts weekly, and we have support from several government and community development groups including Burlington’s CEDO and the State of Vermont.