Eagle Creek Software Services has expanded its Career Development Program.

The training program recruits and trains IT workforce to address shortages in CRM, BI and application development expertise.

Officials with Eagle Creek Software said that, Career Development Program is a highly targeted recruiting, training and career development process designed to attract and train qualified candidates and fully embed them into the company.

As part of the recruitment process, Eagle Creek works with regional colleges, professors, career centers, job boards and media outlets to identify potential candidates. Approximately 90 percent of the recruits are new college graduates with Computer Science, MIS, CIS or computer-related degrees.

"Eagle Creek's Career Development Program is designed to develop qualified, highly skilled consultants for the global enterprise to address the IT skills shortages in the industry," said Ken Behrendt, president of Eagle Creek, in a statement.

Behrendt said that clients turn to Eagle Creek when they need to overcome qualitative resource challenges from offshore suppliers as well as needing a solution for the availability and cost challenges prevalent in the onsite delivery model.

Company officials said that the program capitalizes on the public-private strategic alliance between the company and the state governments of North Dakota and South Dakota to help train and recruit the company's consultants to these states.

According to company officials, each recruit, after being selected, is assigned to highly specialized training courses depending on his/her specific track in the areas of Oracle (News - Alert) CRM, business intelligence or enterprise software development. The goal of the 9-12 month program is to create true experts within their respective domains.

The program runs into three phases; Phase one is a one to two month orientation that develops the recruit's software consulting skills. Phase two, which lasts approximately one to three months, focuses on more specific technical and consulting competencies as it directly relates to their future area of expertise, while Phase three lasts up to six months and is hands on, where the recruit shadows an Eagle Creek consultant to gain insight on best practices and lessons learned from customer engagements.

After graduating from this extensive program, recruits become qualified as Eagle Creek consultants.