We’re Missing the Most Important Part of the Tech Talent Conversation: Jobs
Enrollment in programming classes and bootcamps is growing exponentially. An estimated 16,000 students will complete programming boot camps in 2015 — up from 6,740 in 2014. Thousands more have trained themselves through meetups and Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs).
Retraining America’s workforce is essential, but innovative education is useless without equivalent innovation in hiring.
SKILLS TRAINING IS ONLY HALF THE ANSWER
The ability for anyone with an internet connection to self-learn programming skills is nothing short of revolutionary. Yet despite more Americans learning technology skills than ever before, the U.S. Department of Labor projects that one million jobs in computer programming alone will go unfilled by 2020.
One of the missing components is a clear way to determine how new skills are valued in the marketplace. LaunchCode, the nonprofit startup I founded in 2013, is answering that question. We’re challenging employers to rethink the way they hire to include great candidates who, despite their skills, lack traditional degrees and professional experience. We shortcircuit old hiring processes by taking someone with raw programming talent and placing them in an apprenticeship role at a company.
Our model has proven success. Eighty-two percent of the candidates placed through LaunchCode, at companies ranging from Fortune 500 business to innovative startups and local businesses, do not have a computer science degree and 90% have no professional programming experience. Despite this, nine out of ten LaunchCode apprentices are hired full time.
WE NEED TO BRING MORE EMPLOYERS TO THE TABLE
LaunchCode is a conduit between the right talent and the right job. We believe that today all companies are tech companies — from the grocery store that needs to index supplies to the local startup that’s growing outside Silicon Valley — and they deserve access to talent the same way the major tech companies do.
Companies say finding top tech talent is harder than online dating, but that’s because they don’t know where to look. At its core, tech hiring is a matchmaking problem.
We’ve all heard the major tech companies of the world declare they will hire anyone with talent as long as they can do the job. But most companies lack the capacity to assess each and every candidate’s skill level so they default to requiring a college degree and years of work experience as prerequisites to an interview.
The result: companies miss the talent and newly trained workers miss the job.
“If you can do the job, you should get the job.” — President Barack Obama
Earlier this year President Obama highlighted LaunchCode’s innovative apprenticeship and job-placement program as a national model for bridging the talent gap. The President recognized LaunchCode graduate LaShana Lewis, a former bus driver in East St. Louis, who now works as a systems engineer at MasterCard. He applauded LaShana’s story as an example of how communities can find and train home-grown talent and match those people with well-paying local jobs.
LaunchCode was able to mitigate Mastercard’s risk of hiring someone who didn’t have a typical resume. We helped MasterCard to take a chance on LaShana, to give her the opportunity to demonstrate her knowledge, expertise and professionalism.
We’re witnessing the beginnings of a new economy in America, one where anyone, anytime can learn a new trade and lay the foundation for their own success. All of the components are there — the labor, the training and the demand — to capitalize on these changes, but we have to be open to new ways of doing things and we have to make sure great candidates find great jobs.
The U.S. Department of Labor kicks-off National Apprenticeship Week on November 2.
About Jim McKelvey and LaunchCode
Jim McKelvey, a St. Louis native, is the co-founder of Square.
LaunchCode is a startup nonprofit that partners with over 300 companies nationwide to offer job placement and paid apprenticeships for aspiring developers and technologists. President Obama recognized LaunchCode as a national model for bridging the talent gap as part of his administration’s TechHire initiative. Learn more at www.launchcode.org
