There are a lot of tech talent training programs out there, ranging from very short courses on Coursera to 6-year Master’s degree programs at universities. In today’s world, any tech talent training program should be competency-based, because the working world and on-the-job skills are about competency and performance. To simply get into an entry-level job in tech, applicants are required to show competency on their resume and further prove it in technical interviews.
Employers Want and Hire Competent Talent Regardless of Degrees
Employers are seeking competent talent across the nation, particularly in technical jobs such as software engineer. The important thing to remember about the hiring process is that a degree isn’t enough to get a job, so even if you have one, applicants still need to show competency in the skills related to the job. Tech recruiters in particular look for competent talent, meaning competency-based tech talent training programs, along with a technical portfolio and great interviewing skills, can help applicants land a job in any tech field.
The hiring process generally filters out candidates with not enough competency in technical skills, as a lack of competency is evident in technical interviews. By preparing for technical interviews in advance and going into them with confidence, students are setting themselves up for success.
It’s also important to remember that competency isn’t learned overnight and employers aren’t willing to train on the job because it’s too costly to the organization, particularly given high software salaries. For learners looking to get into tech jobs, competency needs to be developed and honed before the job application process. This can be done through tech talent training programs that are competency-based, collaborative, and skills-based, essentially mastering the in-demand concepts that employers require today.
CBE Reflects What Happens in the Workplace
Tech talent training programs are especially well suited for the methods of competency-based education, largely due to the nature of using and building technology today. The style of these programs lead to higher rates of on-the-job success which is crucial for both employers and applicants. If an employer is investing time and resources into evaluating a candidate, they want them to be competent once hired. The same goes for students who apply for a position that they can feel comfortable understanding the job duties and responsibilities. Competency-based education is truly the only way to go largely because other training options, such as traditional knowledge-delivery methods, don’t yield the results necessary for today's hiring processes or job requirements.
Competency-based education reflects what happens in the workplace environment. The elements of competency-based education align directly with what happens on-the-job in most companies. At the core, CBE is about competency, which in software-related roles, at a minimum means being able to pair program, work in groups to deliver a software project, give and receive peer code reviews, contribute to software architecture discussions, use Git or code version control platforms, write quality and maintainable code, debug code that isn't working efficiently, and applying fundamental understandings of data structures, algorithms, and databases. This method is much more hands-on and involves active learning, participation, and collaboration, and leads to better understanding of the competencies related to software roles.
An Up-to-date Curriculum Helps Learners Gain Employment and Employers Find Talent
With the ever-changing world of technology, an up-to-date curriculum helps to ensure learners get employed after their tech training program and that employers find competent talent. The initiative of this curriculum needs to be broad enough to encompass solid technical foundations, and support major ongoing developments and changes in technology reflected in job requirements. Especially in technology fields, advancements are happening on a daily basis, meaning the curriculum needs to be dynamic and agile enough to support new technology trends. While this sounds simple, most higher education institutions don't update their curriculum that often at all. You cannot wait 5 - 10 years to update a program curriculum when technology is changing so quickly. Competency-based education programs need an up-to-date curriculum that is supported by learning methods that employers are and will continue to look for.
Major changes and trends manifest themselves in job trends and job descriptions or requirements, so keeping an eye on technical job trends at a regional and national level will help to drive decisions about changes in curriculum. In the past few years, Typescript and React.JS have become permanent features in job descriptions for full stack developers and especially front-end developers, which, 5 years ago, was not the case. On the other hand, it's been years and even decades that developer job descriptions have required an understanding in data structures and algorithms. The point is that while technology changes at a fast pace, keeping an eye on job trends will help inform curriculum changes to ensure learners are employable when they finish their training.
Equity in Learning Opportunities and Increasing Diversity in Tech
The style of learning used in programs designed to develop technical talent needs to suit non-traditional learners and be flexible, especially if we are to change diversity in tech. Competency-based education helps more diverse groups of people have access to tech and also succeed in their training. Learners of all skill levels and backgrounds can succeed in competency-based education. Nontraditional learners may not succeed in traditional learning (passive learning, knowledge delivery, lectures, long exams), but can thrive and excel in competency-based education environments and in a job. For technical careers in software, competency-based learning must be rooted in project-based learning and experiential learning, and project-based learning offers a flexibility to learners that empowers learners to learn in a way that works for them. Flexibility in the learning approaches offers more success to a larger variety of learners, translating to a larger variety in the tech talent pool. This leads to more diverse perspectives, better projects and outcomes, and ultimately, a more diverse workforce in the tech space.
On-the-job success is one of the biggest aspects of competency-based education as the competencies required to be successful are developed in the training program beforehand through active learning and hands-on approaches. Access to quality education is one of the biggest roadblocks to equality and diversity in education. Talent has to be derived from a multitude of sources in a large talent pool. Competency-based learning helps learners of all skill levels and abilities get into tech, especially when those programs are affordable and part-time. Most programs at or through Qwasar are part-time, and allow learners to work while studying, helping them to transition to the workforce in a way that works for their respective life situations. Many have families or cannot afford not to work. The combination of flexible learning with competency-based education delivers a powerful opportunity to truly change the tech workforce.
Meet Minimum Skill Standards No Matter the Geography
Tech talent training providers are on a mission to enhance technical education across the world through their varied approaches and curriculum. Each one focuses on areas of importance and relevant topics in the industry today, some of which are driven by their geographic location and region. CBE can help to provide all students with a minimum standard of technical skills and understanding that traverses geography while simultaneously offering an opportunity to become workforce ready talent in a particular geographic market. Tech talent training providers analyze outcomes of students to determine effective methods and success rates. This is why it is so important to use a method of learning that focuses on a student learning what they need to understand and having the skills to problem solve.
What's interesting about a lot of software-related jobs is that despite some geographic differences, there are enormous similarities in what employers want in a software engineer, for example, no matter whether they are in Kansas, New York, Silicon Valley, or Nigeria. When you train learners to be competent at a global minimum standard, you open job opportunities for program graduates around the world, in all different industries. While traditionally training for global jobs wasn't an option, in today's digital economy, fueled by technological advancements in remote work and COVID-19, geographic barriers blur and many companies are recruiting for remote positions nationwide. Program graduates can qualify for positions all over the country and world as they work on platforms and languages that were a part of their standard of knowledge training. However, if you don't train learners to a minimum standard, then they won't have access to thousands of jobs and opportunities that have become permanently remote. The success rates of students in competency-based education are a crucial factor to why such programs succeed at getting learners into jobs.
Why It's a Win-win for Colleges and Learners
Competency-based education benefits colleges and students who are interested in learning to code. CBE programs can help community colleges to grow enrollment due to the high demand for tech talent from employers and tech training from the local population. Also, competency-based programs remove limits to career opportunities and advancements. All students have the same opportunity for success in CBE programs, especially nontraditional learners. They open up tech to groups of people who may have been previously excluded from a career in tech. There is a real opportunity for anyone from any background, race, gender, economic status, geographic location, and more, to have an opportunity to learn technical skills and become competent in the field for on-the-job success. As Ray Rice, the University of Maine at Presque Isle said, “CBE has been a win-win for everyone involved. It serves working adults who aspire to a degree but need self-paced programs to fit their schedules, it enables employers to hire workers with verified competencies and credentials, and it helped our university grow enrollment despite a pandemic and demographic declines." These programs are beneficial to so many groups of people involved and give access to tech to everyone, making the field more diverse and better off with new perspectives and ideas.
Learning by Doing: Practice Through Hands-on Opportunities
Believe it or not, but there’s much similarity in the learning journey between learning to code and becoming a professor. In order to become a professor, students complete four years of undergraduate education to obtain a Bachelor’s degree, and then go on to graduate school for 2 years to obtain a Master’s degree in their subject matter of interest. After that, some may go on to get their PhD which requires many hours dedicated to various subject areas. Eventually, soon-to-be professors begin observing lectures before beginning to teach themselves. They undergo peer reviews both for teaching and for research papers. This process relates well to students in a tech talent training program.
Student in a tech training program generally complete pre-requisites or fundamentals first before moving on to subject-matter specific content whether it be software engineering, full stack development, data science, etc. Through activities such as live coding and coding collaboration sessions, students are able to learn and observe how others code. This is similar to when professors will observe a teacher’s classroom to learn how others teach. Students will also undergo peer code reviews where other developers or more advanced students will review their work and help them to improve their code, ensuring it is up to a minimum acceptable standard.
A professor’s educational journey is very similar to the journey a student goes through in learning to code. Professors must master the competencies of the area they plan to teach in so that they can ensure their students are receiving the best education possible. They are trained through observation, practice, being put into real world teaching opportunities, and then grow into new roles and challenges. The same goes for tech talent. The simple act of knowledge delivery isn’t enough, learning by doing is required. Programmers wouldn’t be able to code without practicing, collaborating, and doing peer code reviews, just as professors wouldn’t know how to teach without practicing, observing other teachers, and receiving feedback. Once they are competent enough in their roles, professors can go on to teach new courses and students, while programmers can become Junior and Senior developers and work with new programming languages.
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Conclusion
In the big picture, employers want to hire competent talent. But the problem facing so many students and employers is how to develop competency. Competency-based education programs are few and far between, yet they are the most successful at fostering high quality, competent candidates. A competency-based education program that practices on the job skills will set up a learner for the most success in the hiring process. Anything that is not competency-based education won’t develop competency which doesn’t result in that win-win situation. When a program produces competent candidates, employers have a large pool of qualified and diverse candidates to hire the best candidates. Learners win because their competency-based education program pays off and they are employed in a position where they are comfortable with the on-the-job tasks and employers win because they spend less time training on-the-job and wasting valuable time and resources.
