Shawn Farrow had been trying to get a full-time job in the tech industry since getting his associate’s degree in computer science from a Seattle-area community college in 2013. He was attending a coding bootcamp in 2016 to brush up on his skills when he heard about a new tech apprenticeship program launching in the area called Apprenti — and was immediately excited about the prospect of getting a guaranteed chance to work for a tech company, even if it was only for a year-long audition.
“I went to school multiple times, and each time that was the outcome i was looking for, was to start my career…and Apprenti does that,” Farrow told VentureBeat. Farrow completed his apprenticeship with Seattle legal tech company Avvo in September, and now works for them full-time as a software engineer.
Though they’ve been utilized by blue-collar industries for years, apprenticeships have gained a new level of prominence among white color industries in the U.S., as the cost of higher education reaches historic highs. Apprenticeships could fill a much-needed gap in the tech industry in particular, where companies complain of a skills gap, but not everyone can afford a four-year computer science degree.
Apprenti, now two years old, is one of the more notable programs, having received funding from the U.S. Department of Labor and Washington State, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Accenture. Additionally two of the largest tech companies on the market — Microsoft and Amazon — have taken some Apprenti apprentices under their wing.
But before apprenticeships can become a standard training program in the tech industry, programs like Apprenti will have to prove that they can scale nationwide — and that they can sufficiently train entry-level talent.
Apprenti launched its first cohort in Seattle early last year. Now, it’s training more than 300 apprentices in six locations — Hearndon, Virginia; Hermiston Oregon; Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, and Seattle — for vocations including software developer, cloud support specialist, and data center technician.
Interested students apply online, and have to first complete an assessment with about 115 questions measuring their critical thinking, logic, and math skills. If they get above a certain composite score (the number varies depending on the market) they are brought in for interviews with the hiring companies depending on job availabilities.
Once an apprentice is hired, he or she goes through roughly 20 weeks of classroom training for the skills needed for that job, which is currently provided to apprentices at no cost. Apprenti works with third-party training providers in each market, including Code Dojo, Microsoft, Cisco, and Northeastern University to develop a curriculum and teach the students. Then, they complete a one-year apprenticeship. Apprenti says that the median salary for apprentices across all markets and jobs is $51,000 plus benefits.
Early adopters testers the waters
So far, Apprenti has graduated 12 students, and about 10 have been retained by the company they’ve apprenticed for. Those who have been retained now have a median salary of $88,000 — compared to about $29,000 before they started Apprenti. Apprenti has also showed promise at creating a diverse pipeline of talent: 81 percent of apprentices who have have come through the program so far are women, underserved or underrepresented persons of color, and/or veterans.
But no matter what retention statistics a program has, signing on to be an apprentice can still be a nerve-wracking commitment. Apprentices dedicate a year of their life to learning the ins and outs of one company’s systems in the hopes that they’ll be hired for a full-time job afterward — but if not, it’s back to the drawing board.
Jennifer Carlson, the executive director of Apprenti, acknowledged this dynamic can be challenging in a phone interview with VentureBeat.
“They’re not an intern, but yet they are kind of in a one year period of an audition for that job,” Carlson told VentureBeat in a phone interview. “So the apprentice has got both the pressure to perform, but is also trying to fit in culturally to the organization.”
“In the end there’s no guarantee that when your year is up, that they’re going to convert you into a full-time employee — its kind of like self-advocation, where you have to try to get an interview,” David Broxton, an apprentice for Microsoft, told VentureBeat. “I think that’s weighing on a lot of us most of the time.”
Broxton, who is nine months into his apprenticeship, added that another point of confusion for the apprentices was whether or not Microsoft would give them same interview as they would a typical entry-level engineer or developer at the end of the year. There’s a fear that these interviews could cover topics that apprentices didn’t learn in their classroom and on-the-job training.
Carlson said that Apprenti has found that mentorship is the key to making apprenticeships actually feel like apprenticeships, not like internships. She said that the most successful hiring companies have at least three other people doing the same work as the apprentice, so that he or she has multiple people within the organization to learn from.
Hunter Davis, the director of engineering at Avvo, said that working with apprentices has inspired the company to change how it works with all of its entry-level talent. Now, every new hire at Avvo is paired with a mentor.
“I think it improves the quality of life for our employees. They feel more supported, they are never alone, they are never stuck or ratholing,” Davis told VentureBeat in a phone interview.
Looking for employer buy-in
Apprenti plans to ramp up affiliate programs in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Nashville by the end of the year, and will likely launch three more programs in the first quarter of 2019, according to a spokesperson.
Robert Lerman, an economist at the Urban Institute, told VentureBeat that a few challenges remain in getting apprenticeships to scale among more industries in the U.S. First is the need for industry-standard frameworks that lay out what makes a successful apprentice, and what skills he or she needs to show by the end of their apprenticeship to show that they’ve achieved competency. Second, apprenticeship programs need people who can pitch other companies on the benefits of apprenticeships.
“Most companies don’t really know about apprenticeship that well, they might find it being very cumbersome to start such a program…and that it’s a big lift to change your policies of recruitment and retention,” Lerman said.
Carlson emphasized that the new markets Apprenti is choosing to expand to really depends on where they see interest from employers, underscoring the idea that apprenticeships will replace four-year-colleges in the near future is more of a fantasy than a reality.
“We’re not unfortunately in — at least in the tech sector — where, ‘if you build it, they will come.’ This is an employer-driven model, and absent having two or three companies in a market that can drive consumption, and help show the value proposition of the talent in the backyard to other companies that are located there — that’s really where that has to start,” Carlson said.