Announcing chicagoapprenticeships.com

Time to Read:

I've been working on a little side project for a while now and I wanted to take a moment to share it with you all. It's called chicagoapprenticeships.com.

I've been working on a little side project for a while now and I wanted to take a moment to share it with you all. It's called chicagoapprenticeships.com.

As someone who cares very deeply about apprenticeships as a way to get great people into our industry, I've spent a lot of time getting to know the folks who create programs and the folks who apply to them. One of the things that's struck me as a part of that process is that only a few of the companies that have an apprenticeship program have actually advertised that program.

That leads to two problems, both of which I'd like to solve:

1. Developers who would be great candidates don't know where they should apply, or when applications are open. Unlike senior positions, apprentice positions tend not to have rolling applications.
2. Companies considering apprenticeship as a model don't realize how many other companies are already successfully incorporating this model into their hiring.

So, I've decided to curate a list of apprenticeship programs in Chicago, modeled after the excellent but stale apprentice.at website. I'm including as much relevant information as possible for both hiring companies and potential applicants in the hope that sharing information leads to more success stories and more programs in the future.

Why Chicago specifically? Honestly, I'm biased. I love this city, and I think that we have a better opportunity to create a vibrant apprenticeship community than several of the other traditional tech hubs. It's pretty common for the Midwest tech scene to angst about not being the West Coast, but that misses what's special and vibrant about this community.

So, if you're looking for details on how to run a program, or where to apply, take a look. If you know of any programs that I've missed or details that are stale, I'd appreciate a head's up. And if you're interested in learning about how to make your own program more successful, please feel free to reach out or visit BeginnerFriendly, a collaboration of folks I'm working with to jumpstart this exact kind of thing.

- Joe