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While plenty of talented tech professionals are in the job market, demand exceeds supply for developers experienced in ASP.NET. Problem is, too few people have up-to-date skills in this Microsoft technology for creating Web applications. So one IT professional services firm is taking matters into its own hands.

BRAD LOPER/DMN Clockwise, from right: Corpus recruiting and training manager Dee Brown helps students such as Scott Brueggemann and Janhavi Sakkarepatna find jobs after they complete the company's intensive workshops.

Irving-based Corpus Inc., which places contract workers on projects at client companies, began offering its Software Development & .NET Workshop in April to help developers prepare for this latest generation of Microsoft tools.

"The job boards are full of opportunities; companies can't find skilled professionals in this area," said Dee Brown, Corpus' manager of college recruiting and business training. "We're trying to bridge the gap."

The course also covers C#, Visual Basic .NET and SQL Server.

The workshop is free, but it's not easy. Participants must apply, and, if accepted, attend classes from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. four nights a week for six weeks. Homework assignments add several hours a week to the workload; most students end up working until midnight or later on class nights and put in lab hours over the weekend.

Darla Logan, a certified Microsoft solution developer, leads the workshop. She says it's different from most programming "boot camps" offered by training firms in that the workshop covers the system development life cycle as well as technical skills.

"The students take an actual project from the beginning all the way through implementation," she said. "We look at how to think about the business problem and how to use technology to solve that problem.

"I've taken a lot of technical courses but never one that walked us through this whole process, step by step."

Building confidence

For Janhavi Sakkarepatna, the workshop was a good way to get back into the job market. After working for four years in Internet development, she took several months off for personal reasons.

Because her previous job involved proprietary software, she wanted a way to make her skills more broadly marketable and signed up for the April course.

Now she's working for Corpus as a systems analyst on a client's billing maintenance system.

"The workshop was pretty rigorous, and sometimes the schedule was hard on my family," said Ms. Sakkarepatna. "But I came out of it feeling really confident about myself."

Within a week on the new job, she felt ready to contribute.

Ms. Logan says she's getting similar feedback from other graduates.

"They're telling me that, after the workshop, they're ready to hit the ground running with a new project," she said.

Scott Brueggemann took the course as a way to transition from college and update his skills. He spent two years as a COBOL programmer at Electronic Data Systems Corp., then went back to school and completed his bachelor's degree in computer information systems at DeVry University last fall.

Coming into the course, "I had the academic skills and the knowledge of the different languages," he said. "The workshop was a way to put it all together. It gave me the .NET knowledge in order to land a job."

Now he's working for Corpus helping develop a client's internal reporting system, a job that calls for ASP.NET as well as skills in C# and SQL Server.

Fostering diversity

Corpus executives say they're investing in the workshop for two reasons – to help retool talented people so that they can meet the needs of Corpus' clients and to help boost diversity in the IT workplace.

"We want the attendees to know that in technology, you are not going to work with people who all look like yourself," Ms. Brown said. "And our CEO, Sachin Tummala, believes that by bringing students from all over and from all walks of life, that diversity will help get Corpus to the next level of thinking."

Once they complete the course, many students end up accepting contract assignments through Corpus. Ms. Brown says that salaries average around $45,000 for developers with the retooled skills. Senior-level ASP programmers average $60,000 to $85,000; many work as consultants, earning $50 to $60 an hour.

Graduates aren't guaranteed offers from Corpus, nor are they obligated to accept them.

Ms. Brown helps all of the graduates find jobs either through Corpus or elsewhere.

"She's very committed to the people who come through this program," Ms. Logan said.

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