At a Virginia school, grads train, work without spending a dime
RIGHT around this time last year, Edward Young was donning a cap and gown for graduation at St. John’s University in New York. He figured his bachelor’s degree in computer science would open doors to all sorts of tech jobs, but a few rounds of interviews proved otherwise.
Scrolling through an employment website months later, Young stumbled across a listing for Revature, a Northern Virginia company offering 12 weeks of computer programming classes. Instead of asking students to hand over upward of US$10,000 (RM45,000) - the going rate for similar “coding boot camps” Revature pays them minimum wage during the training. And upon graduation, the company sends its software engineers out on two-year assignments at federal agencies, banks and other corporations.
“This place sold me on the idea that in a few weeks you get the equivalent of two years of industry experience,” said Young, who is finishing up the immersion course at Revature. “Just the amount of knowledge that employers expect is outside the scope of what they actually teach you in school. My degree gave me a foundation and the right mind-set, but it wasn’t exactly enough.”
Landing a job fresh out of college can be daunting, even for those with a degree in what is perceived as a hot field. About 49,000 bachelor’s degrees were awarded in computer science in 2015, federal data shows, a total that has risen sharply in recent years. While economists say there are more openings and greater demand for young graduates than in years past, degree-holders often find themselves shut out of entry-level jobs that require more experience than college classes and internships have afforded. That’s where Revature comes in, with a hybrid model that blends elements of a traditional apprenticeship and coding courses, with the aim of bridging the skills gap.
“We want to create a pathway between college graduates, who struggle finding a job because every job requires experience, and companies who say I can’t find people who have the skills they need,” said Joe Vacca, chief marketing officer for Restonbased Revature. “Businesses used to have three- or six-month training programmes for entrylevel positions, but those have gone away. Companies just aren’t investing in that early-stage training, so we’re filling that gap.”
At its core, Revature is a staffing agency, and until three years ago staffing was its primary business. But that changed as the firm found it difficult to find people with the skills that employers required. The price structure is still a bit similar to an employment agency: Employers pay Revature while graduates are under contract, and Revature keeps a percentage and then pays workers. Salaries range from US$50,000 to US$65,000 a year.
Unlike a traditional staffing firm, Revature uses its own money to train software engineers, hoping to recoup the investment on the back end.
The company in the past year has launched paid training programmes at 10 colleges, including the University of Maryland University College, George Mason University and the City University of New York.