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Speaker 1: This is on the Job, a podcast about finding your

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Speaker 1: life's work on the job, is brought to you by

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Speaker 1: Express Employment Professionals. This season, we're bringing you stories of

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Speaker 1: folks following their passion to carve their own career path.

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen has virtually changed the job market and given

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Speaker 1: us all a glimpse at occupations that weren't built to

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Speaker 1: survive something like a pandemic. And in twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 1: as the world opens back up, businesses are pivoting to

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Speaker 1: be more sustainable in times of crisis. But for the

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Speaker 1: millions of employees who worked those jobs that have vanished,

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Speaker 1: pivoting to a new one is not easy. In today's episode,

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Speaker 1: we talk with someone who's made it their job to

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Speaker 1: give those people an opportunity. In this last year of

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Speaker 1: the pandemic, My job as a radio producer has changed

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Speaker 1: a lot. I used to interview people face to face

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Speaker 1: all the time and be able to record them in person.

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Speaker 1: Now it's almost completely remote test tess, So it is

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Speaker 1: a real treat when whoever I'm talking to is tech

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Speaker 1: savvy and willing to record on their end. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: you're recording, You're good, I'm here, baby. We live. Luckily,

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Speaker 1: my interviewee for this show works in tech as the

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Speaker 1: CEO and founder of Burlington Code Academy in Vermont In

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Speaker 1: His name is Benjamin Boaz, but I go by Benny

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Speaker 1: and I am twenty eight years old. Benny is kind

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Speaker 1: of on a crusade to make this new reality of

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Speaker 1: working remotely accessible for everyone, which is why at Burlington

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Speaker 1: Code Academy he provides coding boot camps and boot camps

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Speaker 1: and technology fields. So boot camps are these accelerated programs

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Speaker 1: are sometimes twelve weeks, sometimes fourteen weeks, and point of

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Speaker 1: them is is that in a very short period of

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Speaker 1: time you're going to learn all of the skills you

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Speaker 1: need to get a job in a technology field. The

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Speaker 1: term he uses for this is rapid reskilling. He says

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Speaker 1: this is the solution to a problem. The problem being

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Speaker 1: COVID put a ton of people out of work, and

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Speaker 1: as of March twenty twenty one, there are still twelve

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Speaker 1: million people unemployed due to the pandemic and about forty

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Speaker 1: percent of the jobs that were lost. For most of

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Speaker 1: these unemployed folks are not going to come back. That's

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Speaker 1: a lot of jobs. That's a lot of jobs. Let's

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Speaker 1: put it this way, I'm not concerned with jobs disappearing.

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Speaker 1: I'm concerned with where those jobs are going. Okay, to

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Speaker 1: get into the nitty gritty real quick. At the height

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Speaker 1: of the pandemic, unemployment peaked at almost fifteen percent. A

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Speaker 1: lot of those jobs that paused or disappeared were manual

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Speaker 1: labor jobs, service jobs, factory jobs, all lines of work that,

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Speaker 1: even before the pandemic were hugely affected by businesses moving

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Speaker 1: toward automation and digitization. And now, after a year of

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Speaker 1: businesses really having to pivot to use automation rather than

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Speaker 1: hiring employees, they're less inclined to go back. And so

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Speaker 1: that is a big eye opener for people who are

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Speaker 1: sitting at home trying to devise how to get back

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Speaker 1: into their role, is that their role isn't really stable anymore.

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Speaker 1: And so what that means is we need to think

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Speaker 1: about how do we train those people into those jobs

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Speaker 1: that service automation. Benny says, in the next five years,

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Speaker 1: there's a projected twelve million new jobs coming to the

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Speaker 1: US in the tech field, which is enough for each

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Speaker 1: and every American who doesn't have a job right now.

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Speaker 1: And since so much of this work will be remote,

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Speaker 1: people have more access to the ninety six million global

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Speaker 1: jobs that are projected for software development, ninety six million

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Speaker 1: global coding jobs. There are so many coders right now,

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Speaker 1: and yet we still don't have enough. It's pretty unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: So back at Burlington Code Academy, these are what the

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Speaker 1: boot camps are there to do. Give people the tools

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Speaker 1: they need to get these new jobs in a new world.

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Speaker 1: And it's sort of like a second chance because most

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Speaker 1: of the people who attend these programs aren't undergraduates. They're

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Speaker 1: not graduates from high school. They're adults who are mostly

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Speaker 1: between the ages of twenty five to thirty five, but

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Speaker 1: really range up to midlife career switchers and even before

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Speaker 1: retirement age. These are people who don't have work, or

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Speaker 1: don't have enough work, or just people looking for better opportunities.

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Speaker 1: And there's a lot of that opportunity in tech. So

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Speaker 1: that is what specifically these programs do. Benny has built

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Speaker 1: his business around planning for the future, planning for change,

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Speaker 1: and to fully understand how he got there, we've got

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Speaker 1: to go back to how he grew up. Yeah, let's

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Speaker 1: backtrack a little. Okay, So I'm a first generation American.

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Speaker 1: Both my parents were born in Europe. My mother came

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Speaker 1: over here in nineteen sixty nine during the height of

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Speaker 1: the Cold War. His mom was born in Czechoslovakia, which

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Speaker 1: was under Soviet leadership at the time and is now

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Speaker 1: known as the Czech Republic. She just didn't see much

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Speaker 1: of a future for herself in a communist country and

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Speaker 1: couldn't really matter continuing her life there, so she came

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Speaker 1: and fled to America and escaped Communism to start a

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Speaker 1: new life here. And my father also fled persecution to

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Speaker 1: come to America. Benny describes his parents as super smart,

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Speaker 1: entrepreneurial educated, heavy artsy types, but it was hard finding

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Speaker 1: work as immigrants in a new country, so they tried

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Speaker 1: to start a bunch of businesses on their own. They

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Speaker 1: had Benny and his brother. They moved around a lot.

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Speaker 1: They lived in California and Colorado and Maine. They did

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Speaker 1: interior design and taught English as a second language. They

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Speaker 1: even had a bed and breakfast, but Benny says they

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Speaker 1: always had kind of a tough time getting their businesses

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Speaker 1: to take hold. I remember when we were about I

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Speaker 1: was like, I don't know eight. My mom wanted to

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Speaker 1: open an ice cream shop. So she rented this space,

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Speaker 1: got this awning like guy seated up, made it look beautiful,

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Speaker 1: and then wouldn't charge anybody for ice cream. It was

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Speaker 1: a really bad business model because she wanted to sell

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Speaker 1: ice cream to kids but felt bad charging the kids

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Speaker 1: for ice I don't even think that is a business model. No,

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Speaker 1: it was so bad. And so my friends and I

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Speaker 1: just used to go there after school and just like

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Speaker 1: drink the soda and like eat the candy, and then

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Speaker 1: like just watch my mom just not charge anybody for

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Speaker 1: ice cream. And I was like, all right, well, this

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Speaker 1: isn't gonna work for very long. And it didn't. She

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Speaker 1: had to close the shop like two months later. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: his family settled down in Vermont, where Benny went to

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Speaker 1: high school. In high school, I was definitely a rebel.

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Speaker 1: I got kicked out of two high schools. I was

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Speaker 1: a complete stop. Benny says at the time he was

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Speaker 1: just being a punk. But in hindsight, he says, the

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Speaker 1: schools he was thrown into and Vermont just didn't work

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Speaker 1: for him. He felt underwhelmed and unchallenged and unstimulated. He

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Speaker 1: was smart, he got good grades, but my attendance, my

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Speaker 1: behavior my attitude was so poor that it caused me

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Speaker 1: to actually get removed from multiple high schools. So by

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Speaker 1: the time he was a junior in high school and

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Speaker 1: starting to even consider college, he thought there was no

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Speaker 1: chance of him getting into any school because of his record.

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Speaker 1: Until one day I was hanging out at a friend's

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Speaker 1: house and this kid walked up to me and said, Benny,

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Speaker 1: do you want this? And he had a folder in

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Speaker 1: his hands, and it was a minaw envelope and that

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Speaker 1: folder was all of my disciplinary records. Ever, because at

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Speaker 1: the time they kept him on paper, they didn't put

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Speaker 1: them into a digital system. He was in a detention

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Speaker 1: and he saw my disciplinary record in the principal's office

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Speaker 1: and stole it and gave it to me. Benny got

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Speaker 1: into his top choice school, Bennington College, a place he

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Speaker 1: thought was for smart, weirdos like him who didn't fit

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Speaker 1: into the normal school system. He studied political science and economics,

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Speaker 1: art and philosophy. Then after college I graduated and I

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Speaker 1: was like, oh this, I'm so prepared for the job world,

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Speaker 1: and I was so wrong. I literally couldn't get a

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Speaker 1: job anywhere. Eventually took a job at a staffing agency,

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Speaker 1: hated it. And he quit, which means it definitely wasn't

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Speaker 1: a job at Express Employment Professionals. He then got a

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Speaker 1: job as a receptionist at McCann, the ad agency of

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Speaker 1: Madman Fame, and he was super interested in McCann's UX

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Speaker 1: department and ended up shadowing there, getting his first taste

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Speaker 1: of coding in the tech world, which he loved. He

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Speaker 1: got a full time UX coding job afterwards at a

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Speaker 1: different agency, And then about three years later, I was

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Speaker 1: working UX job that I really liked. But I kind

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Speaker 1: of looked back and I said to myself, I was like,

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Speaker 1: how did I get here? Like I didn't study UX

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Speaker 1: in college, and I didn't know what I was going

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Speaker 1: to do? And wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, sorry, what

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Speaker 1: happened to the Manila folder with the one with all

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Speaker 1: your records? It's at my house. Yeah, it's so funny

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Speaker 1: you have it. Yeah, it's still I still have it

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Speaker 1: at my house. How does that make you feel? Do

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Speaker 1: you feel guilty about it at all? Oh, that's a

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Speaker 1: good question. I feel guilty. No, I don't feel guilty

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Speaker 1: that I got into college, Like the system wasn't working

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Speaker 1: for me, and it was so obviously not working that

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Speaker 1: I had to make it work, and that was the

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Speaker 1: only way, Like there was no if. I'd much rather

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Speaker 1: be a productive member of society than an unproductive member

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Speaker 1: of society. And I can't see how I would have

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Speaker 1: gotten to where I am right now if that could

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Speaker 1: not stolen my that Manila folder. So yeah, do I

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Speaker 1: feel bad? No? Do I think the system is broken? Yes,

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Speaker 1: We'll get back to our story in a second. First,

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Speaker 1: a word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic

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Speaker 1: takes pride in a job well done, sweats over the details.

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Speaker 1: This is you. But to get an honest day work,

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Speaker 1: you need a response. You need a callback, You need

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Speaker 1: a job. Express Employment Professionals can help because we understand

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Speaker 1: what it takes to get a job. It takes more

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Speaker 1: than just online searches to land a job. It takes

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Speaker 1: someone who will identify your talents, a person invested in

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Speaker 1: your success. At Express, we can even complete your application

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Speaker 1: with you over the phone, will prepare you for interviews,

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Speaker 1: and will connect you to the right company. Plus, we'll

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Speaker 1: never charge a fee to find you a job. At Express,

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Speaker 1: we could put you to work with companies of all

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Speaker 1: sizes and industries, from the production floor to the front office.

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Speaker 1: Express nose Jobs, get to no Express, find your location

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Speaker 1: at expresspros dot com or on the Express Jobs app.

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Speaker 1: Now back to on the job. So, with this second

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Speaker 1: chance mentality in mind, Benny started Burlington Code Academy. Burlington

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Speaker 1: Code Academy is an immersive, full time program that prepares

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Speaker 1: graduates to enter a new career as a web developer

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Speaker 1: in twelve weeks. That's Benny's voice in a promo video

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Speaker 1: for BCA. Right after they got started, they were immediately

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Speaker 1: getting really positive feedback from students enrolling in the programs.

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Speaker 1: It really is project based learning during projects every single

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Speaker 1: day in collaboration with other students. What sets BCA apart

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Speaker 1: is that they recognize the problem with the tech world

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Speaker 1: that the technology itself is usually what keeps people away

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Speaker 1: from these kinds of jobs. Yes, unlike a lot of

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Speaker 1: other boot camps, we actually don't accept students based off

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Speaker 1: of technical skills, So you don't have to have any

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Speaker 1: technical skills to come to our program at all. Small

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Speaker 1: class size, so the teachers and the tas are very

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Speaker 1: accessible and always willing to help. So Benny says, to

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Speaker 1: get into the program, you have to have people skills.

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Speaker 1: You've got to be able to work on a team,

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Speaker 1: have good verbal skills. You have to want to learn

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Speaker 1: and want to work. That's for us helped a lot

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Speaker 1: of folks who might have been shut out from other

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Speaker 1: coding boot camps get through our doors and into a

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Speaker 1: tech job. It's a blast, and I just think if

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Speaker 1: I could get to do this professionally, if this could

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Speaker 1: be my job, that'd be great. Most of the people

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Speaker 1: that have come through our doors, they're a lot like me. Actually,

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Speaker 1: they're not your prime candidate for tech job. Ben He's

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Speaker 1: seen Walgreens cash years quit their jobs and go to

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Speaker 1: Burlington Code Academy and leave with jobs making eighty thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars a year. We've had parents, including single mothers, able

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Speaker 1: to get a job that would allow them to work

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Speaker 1: from home and take care of their kids. They've had

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Speaker 1: people right off assembly lines breathing not just fumes, or

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Speaker 1: people working tough manual labor jobs into old age, people

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Speaker 1: in physical pain from their work who were able to

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Speaker 1: find more sedentary jobs like coding or software development. We've

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Speaker 1: had women be able to leave abusive relationships on multiple

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Speaker 1: occasion because they've had the earning power to move out

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Speaker 1: of their house after going to Burlington Code Academy. There's

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Speaker 1: just been so many stories of people who have never

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Speaker 1: thought that they were going to be a code or

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Speaker 1: they didn't think that they could do it until we

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Speaker 1: existed and you opened up in twenty seventeen. How many

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Speaker 1: people have been through the program so far, So we've

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Speaker 1: helped almost a couple hundred people find their first job

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Speaker 1: in tech. Wow. When you think about those stories, how

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Speaker 1: does that make you feel like as a person who

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Speaker 1: was part of making them happen? I don't know, You know,

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Speaker 1: I don't think about it that much, to be honest,

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Speaker 1: and I probably should, but I don't. I'll tell you why.

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Speaker 1: Because Burlington Code Academy has done such a good job

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Speaker 1: at amplifying the voices of folks who are in a

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Speaker 1: lot of ways underserved or in some scenarios underprivileged. And

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Speaker 1: that's really great. But it's just not enough. It's really

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Speaker 1: not it's really meaningful. The most meaningful part of my

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Speaker 1: job is to hear when a student gets a job.

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Speaker 1: That's absolutely that makes everything worth it, even the high

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Speaker 1: highs and the low lows. It's when a student gets

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Speaker 1: the job that's what is the most important piece of

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Speaker 1: what we do. Every day, But that's one student. I'm Burlanken.

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Speaker 1: Code Academy has graduated a couple hundred people and that's

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Speaker 1: been three years now. You know, it's like really great

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Speaker 1: because we're doing it, but it's not at the level

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Speaker 1: of which I want to. Benny's ambition is pretty daunting,

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Speaker 1: to be honest, but talking with him, I get it.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's helped two hundred people in a very

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Speaker 1: rural state find jobs in the coding and software development world.

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Speaker 1: That's huge. But if the boot camps could help so

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Speaker 1: many people so quickly, if the demand for the is

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Speaker 1: that high, why aren't they the standard in so many

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Speaker 1: rural areas. Your whole thing is that not that like

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Speaker 1: some people can't do these tech jobs, is that they

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Speaker 1: can't see them, So how would they even know how

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Speaker 1: to go about it? Exactly the way I think about

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Speaker 1: it is, if you are in the middle of West Virginia,

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Speaker 1: near a coal mine or even more rule than that,

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Speaker 1: and there is no college near you, would you ever

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Speaker 1: consider college? You can't do what you can't see, Yeah, exactly, Like,

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Speaker 1: there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to

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Speaker 1: go to your local community college and take a coding

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Speaker 1: boot game. That's that should be, that should be a

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Speaker 1: staple in their curriculum and in it will be the

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Speaker 1: reason he's so confident because that is what he's doing now.

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Speaker 1: In the last couple of years, he started a new

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Speaker 1: company called Upright Education, which will help colleges all over

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Speaker 1: the country set up the same boot camp programs he

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Speaker 1: started at Burlington Code Academy. He says, with the enormous

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Speaker 1: growth in community college over the last few decades, America's

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Speaker 1: infrastructure to make these classes accessible is already there. His

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Speaker 1: goal is to just use it. The truth is, the

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Speaker 1: system isn't what we're trying to change. You have to

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Speaker 1: work with the resources that are already available. These schools

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Speaker 1: are working because colleges do work. They have uplifted to

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Speaker 1: middle class, they have uplifted to lower income families. So

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Speaker 1: it's working now. We just need to make it work

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Speaker 1: for the twenty first century. When you think about doing that,

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Speaker 1: in your head, do you imagine young Benny who was

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Speaker 1: kind of failed by the system? Are you kind of

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Speaker 1: like making something for him? That's funny, These are all

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Speaker 1: questions Zones ever asking. I've never thought about I kind

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Speaker 1: of more think about my parents. Actually because they were

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Speaker 1: of immigrants, you know, to this country, and it was

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Speaker 1: really hard for them. You know. They were like forward

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Speaker 1: by everything here, let alone like how the job market worked.

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Speaker 1: The purpose of what we do is for people like

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Speaker 1: my parents. The reason why we do it is because

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Speaker 1: Benny went to college. Benny is a self starter. Young

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Speaker 1: Benny was also rebellious and probably take up a lot

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Speaker 1: on his own. But my parents didn't have an opportunity.

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Speaker 1: They did everything they could to give my brother and

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Speaker 1: I a good life, and I think about what would

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Speaker 1: have been like if they would have had an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to have gotten to a stable career earlier in their life.

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Speaker 1: I'll be honest. Hearing Benny's story made me think about

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Speaker 1: second chances in a way that I hadn't in a while.

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Speaker 1: Like think of that punk kid you knew in high school,

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Speaker 1: or maybe a family member who has been in and

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Speaker 1: out of trouble and couldn't hold a job. Maybe it's

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Speaker 1: you having a hard time knowing what you're gonna do

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Speaker 1: with your life. Maybe it's not that you don't fit

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Speaker 1: into the world. Maybe is that the world doesn't fit you.

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Speaker 1: And given a Manila folder a second chance at finding

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Speaker 1: something that works for you? What could you do with it?

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Speaker 1: With a year that we've all been deeply affected by.

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Speaker 1: I think most people can get down with the idea

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Speaker 1: of adover, And in spite of historically high unemployment numbers,

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Speaker 1: Benny has made it his job to make sure people

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Speaker 1: who need a second shot at least have the option

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Speaker 1: to take it. I'm not gonna feel satisfied until we

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Speaker 1: make a big dent in any of those numbers that

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Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier. You got your work cut out for you.

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Speaker 1: It'll work out. We'll get there. For On the Job,

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Speaker 1: I'm Otis Gray. Thanks for listening to On the Job,

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Speaker 1: brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. The season of

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Speaker 1: On the Job is produced by Audiation. The episodes were

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Speaker 1: written and produced by me Otis Gray. Our executive producer

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Speaker 1: is Sandy Smallens. The show is mixed by Matt Noble

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Speaker 1: for Audiation Studios at the Loft in Bronxville, New York.

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Speaker 1: Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on iHeartRadio and

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard, please consider

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Speaker 1: rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen. We'll see you next time for more inspiring stories,

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Speaker 1: about discovering your life's work. Audition