Speaker 1: This is on the Job, a podcast about finding your
Speaker 1: life's work on the job, is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Express Employment Professionals. This season, we're bringing you stories of
Speaker 1: folks following their passion to carve their own career path.
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen has virtually changed the job market and given
Speaker 1: us all a glimpse at occupations that weren't built to
Speaker 1: survive something like a pandemic. And as the world opens
Speaker 1: back up, businesses are pivoting to be more sustainable in
Speaker 1: times of crisis. But for the millions of employees who
Speaker 1: worked those jobs that have vanished, pivoting to a new
Speaker 1: one is not easy. In today's episode, we talked with
Speaker 1: someone who's made it their job to give those people
Speaker 1: an opportunity. In this last year of the pandemic. My
Speaker 1: job as a radio producer has changed a lot. I
Speaker 1: used to interview people face to face all the time
Speaker 1: and be able to record them in person. Now it's
Speaker 1: almost completely remote test test. So it is a real
Speaker 1: treat when whoever I'm talking to is tech savvy and
Speaker 1: willing to record on their end. Okay, so you're recording,
Speaker 1: You're good. I'm here, baby. We live luckily. My interviewee
Speaker 1: for this show works in tech as the CEO and
Speaker 1: founder of Burlington Code Academy in Vermont, and his name
Speaker 1: is Benjamin Boas, but I go by Benny and I
Speaker 1: am twenty eight years old. Benny is kind of on
Speaker 1: a crusade to make this new reality of working remotely
Speaker 1: accessible for everyone, which is why Burlington Code Academy he
Speaker 1: provides coding boot camps and boot camps and technology fields.
Speaker 1: So boot camps are these accelerated programs are sometimes twelve weeks,
Speaker 1: sometimes fourteen weeks, and point of them is that in
Speaker 1: a very short period of time you're gonna learn all
Speaker 1: of the skills you need to get a job in
Speaker 1: a technology field. The term he uses for this is
Speaker 1: rapid reskilling. He says this is the solution to a problem.
Speaker 1: The problem being COVID put a ton of people out
Speaker 1: of work, and as of March, there are still twelve
Speaker 1: million people unemployed due to the pandemic, and about the
Speaker 1: jobs that were lost for most of these unemployed folks
Speaker 1: are not going to come back. That's a lot of jobs.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of jobs. Let's put it this way.
Speaker 1: I'm not concerned with jobs disappearing I'm concerned with where
Speaker 1: those jobs are going. Okay, to get into the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty real quick. At the height of the pandemic, unemployment
Speaker 1: peaked at almost a lot of those jobs that paused
Speaker 1: or disappeared were manual labor jobs, service jobs, factory jobs,
Speaker 1: all lines of work that even before the pandemic were
Speaker 1: hugely affected by businesses moving toward automation and digitization. And now,
Speaker 1: after a year of businesses really having to pivot to
Speaker 1: use automation rather than hiring employees, they're less inclined to
Speaker 1: go back. And so that is the big eye opener
Speaker 1: for people who are you know, sitting at home trying
Speaker 1: to devise how to get back into their role, is
Speaker 1: that their role isn't really stable anymore. And so what
Speaker 1: that means is we need to think about how do
Speaker 1: we train those people into those jobs that service automation.
Speaker 1: Benny says, in the next five years, there's a projected
Speaker 1: twelve million new jobs coming to the US in the
Speaker 1: tech field, which is enough for each and every American
Speaker 1: who doesn't have a job right now. And since so
Speaker 1: much of this work will be remote, people have more
Speaker 1: access to the nineties six million global jobs that are
Speaker 1: projected for software development million global coding jobs. There are
Speaker 1: so many coders right now, and yet we still don't
Speaker 1: have enough. It's pretty unbelievable. So back at Burlington Code Academy,
Speaker 1: these are what the boot camps are there to do.
Speaker 1: Give people the tools they need to get these new
Speaker 1: jobs in a new world. And it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a second chance because most of the people who attend
Speaker 1: these programs are aren't undergraduates. They're not graduate from high school.
Speaker 1: They're adults who are mostly between the ages of thirty five,
Speaker 1: but really range up to midlife career switchers and even
Speaker 1: before retirement age. These are people who don't have work,
Speaker 1: or don't have enough work, or just people looking for
Speaker 1: better opportunities. And there's a lot of that opportunity in tech.
Speaker 1: So that is what specifically these programs do. Benny has
Speaker 1: built his business around planning for the future, planning for change,
Speaker 1: and to fully understand how he got there, we've got
Speaker 1: to go back to how he grew up. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: let's backtrack a little. Okay. So, um, I'm a first
Speaker 1: generation American. Both my parents were born in Europe. My
Speaker 1: mother came over here in nineteen sixty nine, during the
Speaker 1: height of the Cold War. His mom was born in Czechoslovakia,
Speaker 1: which was under Soviet leadership at the time and is
Speaker 1: now known as the Czech Republic. She just didn't see
Speaker 1: much of a future for herself in a communist country
Speaker 1: and couldn't really matter continuing her life there, so she
Speaker 1: came and fled to America and escaped Communism to start
Speaker 1: a new life here. And my father also fled persecution
Speaker 1: to come to America. Benny describes his parents as super smart,
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial educated, heavy artsy types, but it was hard finding
Speaker 1: work as immigrants in a new country, so they tried
Speaker 1: to start a bunch of businesses on their own. They
Speaker 1: had Benny and his brother. They moved around a lot.
Speaker 1: They lived in California and Colorado and Maine. They didn't
Speaker 1: try your design and taught English as a second language.
Speaker 1: They even had a bed and breakfast, But Benny says
Speaker 1: they always had kind of a tough time getting their
Speaker 1: businesses to take hold. I remember when we were about
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know eight. My mom wanted
Speaker 1: to open an ice cream shop, so she rented this space,
Speaker 1: got this awning like guy seated up made it look
Speaker 1: beautiful and then wouldn't charge anybody for ice cream. It
Speaker 1: was a really bad business model because she wanted to
Speaker 1: sell ice cream two kids, but felt bad charging the
Speaker 1: kids for ice I don't even think that is a
Speaker 1: business model. No, it's so bad. And so my friends
Speaker 1: and I just used to go there after school and
Speaker 1: just like drink the soda and like eat the candy,
Speaker 1: and then like just watch my mom just not charge
Speaker 1: anybody for ice cream. And I was like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: this isn't gonna work for very long. And it didn't.
Speaker 1: She had to close the shop like two months later. Eventually,
Speaker 1: his family settled down in Vermont, where Benny went to
Speaker 1: high school. In high school, I was definitely a rebel.
Speaker 1: I got kicked out at two high schools. I was
Speaker 1: a complete stop, Benny says. At the time, he was
Speaker 1: just being a punk. But in hindsight, he said the
Speaker 1: schools he was thrown into and Vermont just didn't work
Speaker 1: for him. He felt underwhelmed and unchallenged, unstimulated. He was smart,
Speaker 1: he got good grades, but my attendance, my behavior, my
Speaker 1: attitude was so poor that it caused me to actually get,
Speaker 1: you know, removed from multiple high schools. So by the
Speaker 1: time he was a junior in high school and starting
Speaker 1: to even consider college, he thought there was no chance
Speaker 1: of him getting into any school because of his record.
Speaker 1: Until one day I was hanging out at a friend's
Speaker 1: house and this kid walked up to me and said, Bang,
Speaker 1: do you want this? And he had a folder in
Speaker 1: his hands, and it was Manawa envelope, and in that
Speaker 1: folder was all of my disciplinary records. Ever, because at
Speaker 1: the time they kept him on paper, they didn't put
Speaker 1: them into a digital system. He was in a detention
Speaker 1: and he saw my disciplinary record in the principal's office
Speaker 1: and stole it and gave it to me. Benny got
Speaker 1: into his top choice school, Bennington College, a place he
Speaker 1: thought was for smart, weirdos like him who didn't fit
Speaker 1: into the normal school system. He studied political science and economics,
Speaker 1: art and philosophy. Then after college, I graduated and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh this, I'm so prepared for the job world.
Speaker 1: And I was so wrong. I literally couldn't get a
Speaker 1: job anywhere. He eventually took a job at a staffing agency,
Speaker 1: hated it, and he quit, which means it definitely wasn't
Speaker 1: a job at Express Employment. Professionals. He then got a
Speaker 1: job as a receptionist at McCann, the ad agency of
Speaker 1: Madman Fame, and he was super interested in McCann's UX
Speaker 1: department and ended up shadowing there, getting his first taste
Speaker 1: of coding in the tech world, which he loved. He
Speaker 1: got a full time UX coding job afterwards at a
Speaker 1: different agency, and then about three years later, I was
Speaker 1: working UX job that I really liked. But I kind
Speaker 1: of looked back and I said to myself, I was like,
Speaker 1: how did I get here? Like I didn't study UX
Speaker 1: in college, and I didn't know what I was gonna do.
Speaker 1: And wait, wait, wait, wait wait, sorry, um, what happened
Speaker 1: to the Manila folder with the one with all your records?
Speaker 1: It's at my house. Yeah, it's so funny you have it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's still I still have it at my house. How
Speaker 1: does that make you feel? Do you feel guilty about
Speaker 1: it at all? Oh, that's a good question. I feel guilty. No,
Speaker 1: I don't feel guilty that I got into college. Like
Speaker 1: the system wasn't working for me, and it was so
Speaker 1: obviously not working that I had to make it work
Speaker 1: and that was the only way, Like there was no
Speaker 1: if I I'd much rather be a productive member of
Speaker 1: society than an unproductive member of society. And I can't
Speaker 1: see how I would have gotten to where I am
Speaker 1: right now if that could have not stole them my
Speaker 1: that Manila folder. So um, yeah, do I feel bad? No?
Speaker 1: Do I think the system is broken? Yes? M mhm.
Speaker 1: We'll get back to our story in a second. First,
Speaker 1: a word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic
Speaker 1: takes pride in a job well done, sweats over the details.
Speaker 1: This is you. But to get an honest day is work.
Speaker 1: You need a response, you need a call back, You
Speaker 1: need a job. Express Employment Professionals can help because we
Speaker 1: understand what it takes to get a job. It takes
Speaker 1: more than just online searches to land a job. It
Speaker 1: takes someone who will identify your talents, a person invested
Speaker 1: in your success. At Express, we can even complete your
Speaker 1: application with you over the phone, will prepare you for interviews,
Speaker 1: and will connect you to the right company. Plus, we'll
Speaker 1: never charge a fee to find you a job. At Express,
Speaker 1: we could put you to work with companies of all
Speaker 1: sizes and industries, from the production floor to the front office.
Speaker 1: Express nose jobs get to no Express find your location
Speaker 1: at Express pros dot com or on the Express Jobs app.
Speaker 1: Now back to on the job. So with this second
Speaker 1: chance mentality in mind, Benny started Burlington Code Academy. Burlington
Speaker 1: Code Academy is an immersive, full time program that prepares
Speaker 1: graduates to enter a new career as a web developer
Speaker 1: in twelve weeks. That's Benny's voice in a promo video
Speaker 1: for b c A. Right after they got started, they
Speaker 1: were immediately getting really positive feedback from students and rolling
Speaker 1: in the programs. It really is project based learning during
Speaker 1: projects every single day in collaboration with other students. What
Speaker 1: sets b c A apart is that they recognize the
Speaker 1: problem with the tech world that the technology itself is
Speaker 1: usually what keeps people away from these kinds of jobs. Yes,
Speaker 1: unlike a lot of other boot camps, we actually don't
Speaker 1: accept students based off of technical skills, So you don't
Speaker 1: have to have any technical skills to come to our
Speaker 1: program at all. Small class size, so the teachers and
Speaker 1: the t a s are very accessible and always willing
Speaker 1: to help. So Benny says, to get into the program,
Speaker 1: you have to have people skills. You've got to be
Speaker 1: able to work on a team, have good verbal skills.
Speaker 1: You have to want to learn and want to work.
Speaker 1: That's for helped a lot of folks who might have
Speaker 1: been shut out from other coding boot camps get through
Speaker 1: our doors and into a tech job. And I just think,
Speaker 1: if I could get to do this professionally, if this
Speaker 1: could be my job, that'd be great. Most of the
Speaker 1: people that have come through our doors, they're a lot
Speaker 1: like me. Actually, they're not your prime candidate for tech job.
Speaker 1: Then he's seen Walgreens cash years quit their jobs and
Speaker 1: go to Burlington Code Academy and leave with jobs making
Speaker 1: eighty thou dollars a year. We've had parents, um including
Speaker 1: single mothers, able to get a job that would allow
Speaker 1: them to work from home and take care of their kids.
Speaker 1: They've had people right off assembly lines breathing not just fumes,
Speaker 1: or people working tough manual labor jobs into old age
Speaker 1: people in physical pain from their work who were able
Speaker 1: to find more sedentary jobs like coding or software development.
Speaker 1: We've had women be able to leave abusive relationships on
Speaker 1: multiple occasion because they've had the earning power to move
Speaker 1: out of their house after going to Burlington Code Academy.
Speaker 1: There's just been so many stories of people who have
Speaker 1: never thought that they were going to be a quote
Speaker 1: or um. They didn't think that they could do it
Speaker 1: until we existed and you opened up in seen how
Speaker 1: many people have been through the program so far. So
Speaker 1: we've helped almost a couple of hundred people find their
Speaker 1: first job in tech. Wow. When you think about those stories,
Speaker 1: how does that make you feel like as a person
Speaker 1: who was part of making them happen? I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think about it that much, to
Speaker 1: be honest, and I probably should, but I don't. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you why. Because Burlington Code Academy has done such
Speaker 1: a good job at amplifying the voices of folks who
Speaker 1: are in a lot of ways underserved or in some
Speaker 1: scenarios underprivileged. And that's really great. But it's just not enough.
Speaker 1: It's really not It's really meaningful. The most meaningful part
Speaker 1: of my job is to hear when a student gets
Speaker 1: a job. That's absolutely makes everything worth it, even the
Speaker 1: high highs and the low lows. It's when a student
Speaker 1: gets the job. That's what is the most important piece
Speaker 1: of what we do every day. But that's one student.
Speaker 1: I'm Blanton Code Academy has graduated a couple hundred people
Speaker 1: and that's been three years now. You know, it's like,
Speaker 1: really great because we're doing it, but it's not at
Speaker 1: the level of which I want to. Benny's ambition is
Speaker 1: pretty daunting, to be honest, but talking with him, I
Speaker 1: get it. You know, he's helped two d people in
Speaker 1: a very rural state find jobs in the coding and
Speaker 1: software development world. That's huge. But if the boot camps
Speaker 1: could help so many people so quickly, if the demand
Speaker 1: for the is that high, why aren't they the standard
Speaker 1: in so many rural areas. Your Your whole thing is
Speaker 1: that not that like some people can't do these tech jobs,
Speaker 1: is that they can't see them, So how would they
Speaker 1: even know how to go about it? Exactly? The way
Speaker 1: I think about it is, if you are in the
Speaker 1: middle of West Virginia near a coal mine, or even
Speaker 1: more rule than that, there is no college near you,
Speaker 1: would you ever consider college? You can't do what you
Speaker 1: can't see. Yeah, exactly, Like, there's no reason why you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be able to go to your local community college
Speaker 1: and take a coding boo game. That's that should be.
Speaker 1: That should be a staple in their curriculum and and
Speaker 1: it will be the reason he's so confident because that
Speaker 1: is what he's doing now. In the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: he started a new company called Upright Education, which will
Speaker 1: help colleges all over the country set up the same
Speaker 1: boot camp programs he started at Burlington Code Academy. He says,
Speaker 1: with the enormous growth in community college over the last
Speaker 1: few decades, America's infrastructure to make these classes accessible is
Speaker 1: already there. His goal is to just use it. The
Speaker 1: truth is, the system isn't what we're trying to change.
Speaker 1: You have to work with the resources that have are
Speaker 1: already available. These schools are working because colleges do work.
Speaker 1: They have uplifted to middle class, they have uplifted to
Speaker 1: lower income families. So it's working now. We just need
Speaker 1: to make it work for the twenty century. When you
Speaker 1: think about doing that, in your head, do you imagine
Speaker 1: young Benny who was kind of failed by the system?
Speaker 1: Are you are you kind of like making something for him? Um,
Speaker 1: that's funny. These are all questions one's ever asked me.
Speaker 1: I've never thought about Uh. I kind of more think
Speaker 1: about my parents actually, because they were immigrants you know,
Speaker 1: to this country, and um, it was really hard for them.
Speaker 1: You know, they were like forward by everything here, let
Speaker 1: alone like how the job market worked. The purpose of
Speaker 1: what we do is for people like my parents. The
Speaker 1: reason why we do it is because Benny went to college.
Speaker 1: Benny is a self starter. Young Benny was also rebellious
Speaker 1: and probably kept a lot on his own. But my
Speaker 1: parents didn't have an opportunity. They did everything they could
Speaker 1: to give my brother and I a good life, and
Speaker 1: I think about what would have been like if they
Speaker 1: would have had an opportunity to have gotten to a
Speaker 1: stable career earlier in their life. I'll be honest. Hearing
Speaker 1: Benny's story made me think about second chances in a
Speaker 1: way that I hadn't in a while. Like think of
Speaker 1: that punk kid you knew in high school, or maybe
Speaker 1: a family member who has been in and out of
Speaker 1: trouble and couldn't hold a job. Maybe it's you having
Speaker 1: a hard time knowing what you're gonna do with your life.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not that you don't fit into the world.
Speaker 1: Maybe is that the world doesn't fit you. And given
Speaker 1: a Manila folder a second chance of finding something that
Speaker 1: works for you, what could you do with it with
Speaker 1: a year that we've all been deeply affected by. I
Speaker 1: think most people can get down with the idea of
Speaker 1: a do over, and in spite of historically high unemployment numbers,
Speaker 1: Benny has made it his job to make sure people
Speaker 1: who need a second shot at least have the option
Speaker 1: to take it. I'm not gonna feel satisfied until we
Speaker 1: make a big dent in any of those numbers that
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier. You got your work cut out for you.
Speaker 1: It'll work out. We'll get there. For On the Job,
Speaker 1: I'm Otis Gray. Thanks for listening to On the Job,
Speaker 1: brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. This season of
Speaker 1: On the Job is produced by Audiation. The episodes were
Speaker 1: written and produced by me Otis Gray. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Sandy Smallens. The show is mixed by Matt Noble
Speaker 1: for Audiation Studios at The Loft in Bronxville, New York.
Speaker 1: Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard,
Speaker 1: please consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For
Speaker 1: more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work, Audiation,