If you haven’t yet read the IWSI America report on Modern Apprentices, then I suggest you do. It talks about how to get started with apprenticeship and gives a list of key tasks to tackle. Here’s my list of what you need to do to get started, based heavily on the list in the report, with a few extra tips I’ve learned on the way.
How to get started with apprenticeship:
- Identify the roles you want to apprentice.
- Create an internal team to formulate a plan for your apprentices.
- Engage external partners who can help you train, mentor, or source apprentices.
- Identify mentors and coaches within your existing team.
- Outline candidate qualifications, if any.
- Identify achievable core competencies for your apprentices.
- Create on-the-job training goals and a curriculum, if training in-house.
- Determine salary for both apprentice stage and full employee stage.
- Consider EDI training for your staff.
- Develop an on-going evaluation process that includes a plan for retaining apprentices and integrating them into (or changing) your company culture.
TalentPath is a training program that helps companies teach people how to code using our Techdegree curriculum. Those students then join the workforce as paid apprentices and subsequently as full-time developers. Read about how Mailchimp made huge gains for diversity in technology by applying these principles.
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