IT pre-apprenticeship programs should clearly articulate expectations for participation, such as self-management, persistence skills, and other success requirements.
The high demands and skills of the jobs require that pre-apprenticeship programs assess candidate readiness, while avoiding a process that adds unnecessary burden.
IT is a highly skilled industry that expects workers to be self-directed, and so high-quality pre-apprenticeship programs should both assess candidates for their readiness for successful participation and further develop those skills. Program recruitment and assessment strategies should align with the required employability skills (above) and should additionally incorporate a comprehensive approach to evaluate traits and skills need for entry into the training program.
Information sessions and orientations engage interested participants and provide candidates opportunities to self-assess readiness for training. Best practices include incorporating a variety of voices such as instructors, alumni, and employers to inform prospective participants of expectations, resources, and benefits of attending and completing pre-apprenticeship.
Multistep applications are common among IT on-ramp training programs, because of the high demands of the sector. Common activities include personal profile creation, pre-testing and assessments, and interviews. This allows programs to better gauge individual strengths and growth areas and identify needs across incoming cohorts. Multistep applications are also deployed by apprenticeship programs and employers, providing an opportunity to model the steps participants will experience when applying to future career opportunities. While this strategy can be useful for evaluation and engagement, pre-apprenticeship programs should embed as many of these activities within the actual pre-apprenticeship training as possible, avoiding an extended application period that can discourage entry.