More Than Ready

A program that trains and places new IT workers in six-month apprenticeships is two steps closer to reality. Just before the holidays, the Foundation's staff traveled to Minneapolis-St. Paul and Cincinnati to meet with potential employers and non-profit partners in those cities about the Foundation’s new IT-Ready Apprentice Program.The response was overwhelmingly positive. “Everywhere we went, people were telling us how needed this program is, both for employers and potential employees,” said Creating IT Futures Foundation executive director Charles Eaton. “Employers are embracing a program that helps veterans and others in need to gain on-the-job experience that can increase their chances of a full-time career in IT.”
IT-Ready Apprentices are U.S citizens who are unemployed or underemployed. The program specifically, but not exclusively, recruits for military veterans and their spouses, caregivers of wounded warriors, and women, African-Americans and Hispanics.

Many non-profit IT workforce development training programs last four to six months, but that’s often too long for individuals who are need of a steady income. IT-Ready’s training component is an intensive program lasting eight weeks, which includes training to the CompTIA A+ certification as well as professional skills training. Trainees who receive their A+ certification qualify for a six-month paid apprenticeship doing full-time entry-level IT work such as desktop or help-desk support with an employer in their area.

The IT-Ready program officially launched in November 2011. Though the program initially identified five locations for 2012, overwhelming response necessitated focusing the program on the first two cities, with hopes to expand to more cities every year moving forward.

Employers are asked to commit to taking on apprentices by the end of February 2012. (Click here if you are an employer in Cincinnati or Minneapolis / St. Paul.) Apprentices will be trained in May and June, with the first apprentices to report on the job in July 2012.

If all goes well with the first wave of apprentices, a second IT-Ready class is planned in each location later in the year.
“We want to make sure the program is working very smoothly before expanding ,” Eaton explained. “A program like this has a lot of moving parts. Concentrating on Cincinnati and Minneapolis-St. Paul will make sure we don’t rush through any details. What we learn in one location, we’ll apply to the next.”

Eaton said the main objective “is to develop a scalable, repeatable and sustainable model for connecting the populations that we serve with training, mentoring, apprenticeships, and employment opportunities in IT.”

To be successful will require partnering on the local level in each training location as well as tapping into industry networks nationally, he said.

For example, CompTIA members and other industry professionals are being asked to serve as mentors to apprentices, acting as a sounding board if an apprentice has questions while on the job. (Those interested in learning more about becoming a mentor should visit the IT-Ready section of the Foundation’s web site.)

The overall goal: Give individuals on the job experience to go with a certification, to make them more ready than ever for a full-time IT job and career.