Students who want to pursue a job in office work can now earn a Business Information Worker (BIW) certificate in two semesters that provides extensive office skills for enrolled students.
Starting next semester all required classes will be offered at San Diego City College. Every class is an eight week period split into two semesters.
This certificate is offered through the Computer Business Technology department in order to help students gain the experience they need to when looking for a job in an office environment.
The BIW certificate is expected by employers to ensure that potential employees are skilled in keyboarding, Microsoft Windows, Word, Excel, Outlook, business communications and human relations and these skills can be acquired through the BIW program courses. According to the brochure, students will be able to leave with these skills as well as problem solving and critical thinking.
According to Dean of School of Business and Information Technology and Cosmetology Rose LaMuraglia, “We have faculty from this campus who met with many businesses to see what they are looking for when hiring someone.”
For entry-level businesses they want someone to be able to use a computer, be able to communicate, to know how to send a proper email, to put together a project or even proposal and even know how to get along with others.
“They talked about email as if it was a holy grail because when an employee sends an email to a customer, that email represents that business,” LaMuraglia said.
The person will also most likely manage the calendar for many other people so they will need to know how to use Microsoft Outlook. So the Word class, Excel class and Outlook became part of the curriculum.
The man who supported this certificate is Phil Blair, who owns many of the Manpower franchises in California, Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico, Hawaii and Las Vegas. Daily, he gets thousands of people to place in jobs.
According the Labor Market Information Division 2012 that covers a 10-year period (2010-2020), there are 2,000 job openings for office clerks for receptionists, 4,770 jobs for customer service and 9,210 in San Diego without job experience.
This program is a path students can take to learn the basics of technology in order to receive a decent job that will give them the experience they need for the future. Once students complete they BIW program they will have the skill set to then apply for entry-level jobs.
For more information about the Business Information Worker Program, click here or contact LaMuraglia in room BT-215.
