The Bobby Bones Show - Episode 4: Booting Up a Better Career

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

During the height of the pandemic, unemployment peaked at around 15%. And many of the jobs lost, especially in industries that were already seeing disruption through automation and outsourcing, may never come back. Enter Benny Boas and the Burlington Code Academy. He and his co-founder Alex Horner have created a 'boot camp' to teach people new skills, primarily in software coding and interface design. BCA is a lifeline for folks trying to attain new, work-from-home friendly skills - especially single parents who are balancing raising children with making a living. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Open doors to the future for you and your family with the help of American Military University. That's AMU. .apus. Dot E-D-U-S-Military. This is On the Job, a podcast about finding your life's work. On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. This season, we're bringing new stories of folks following their passion to carve their own career path. COVID-19 has virtually changed the job market and given us all a glimpse at occupations that weren't built to survive something like a pandemic.

And in 2021, as the world opens back up, businesses are pivoting to be more sustainable in times of crisis. But for the millions of employees who work those jobs that have vanished, pivoting to a new one is not easy. In today's episode, we talk with someone who's made it their job to give those people an opportunity. In this last year of the pandemic, my job as a radio producer has changed a lot. I used to interview people face-to-face all the time and be able to record them in person. Now, it's almost completely remote. Test, test. So it is a real treat when whoever I'm talking to is tech savvy and willing to record on their end.

Okay, so you're recording, you're good. I'm here, baby. We live. Luckily, my interviewee for this show works in tech as the same. CEO and founder of Burlington Code Academy in Vermont. And his name is Benjamin Boas. But I go by Benny and I am 28 years old. Benny is kind of on a crusade to make this new reality of working remotely accessible for everyone, which is why at Burlington Code Academy, he provides coding boot camps and boot camps in technology fields. So boot camps are these accelerated programs. They're sometimes 12 weeks, sometimes 14 weeks. And the point of them is that in a very short period of time,

you're going to learn all of the skills you need to get a job in a technology field. The term he uses for this is rapid reskilling. He says this is the solution to a problem. The problem being, COVID put a ton of people out of work. And as of March 2021, there are still 12 million people unemployed due to the pandemic. And about 40% of the jobs that were lost for most of these unemployed folks are not going to come back. That's a lot of jobs. That's a lot of jobs.

let's put it this way. I'm not concerned with jobs disappearing. I'm concerned with where those jobs are going. To get into the nitty gritty real quick, at the height of the pandemic, unemployment peaked at almost 15%. A lot of those jobs that paused or disappeared were manual labor jobs, service jobs, factory jobs, all lines of work that even before the pandemic were hugely affected by businesses moving toward automation and digitization. And now, after a year of businesses, really having to pivot to use automation rather than hiring employees, they're less inclined to go back. And so that is a big eye opener for people who are sitting at home trying to devise how to get back into their role. Is that their role isn't really stable anymore. And so what that means

is we need to think about how do we train those people into those jobs that service automation. Benny says in the next five years, there's a projected 12 million new jobs coming to the U.S. in the tech field, which is enough for each and every American who doesn't have a job right now. And since so much of this work will be remote, people have more access to the 96 million global jobs that are projected for software development. 96 million global coding jobs. There are so many coders right now, and yet we still don't have enough. It's pretty unbelievable. So, back at Burlington Code Academy, these are what the boot camps are there to do.

Give people the tools they need to get these new jobs in a new world. And it's sort of like a second chance because most of the people who attend these programs aren't undergraduates. They're not graduates from high school. They're adults who are mostly between the ages of 25 to 35, but really range up to midlife career switches and even before retirement age. These are people who don't have work or don't have enough work. or just people looking for better opportunities. There's a lot of that opportunity in tech. So that is what specifically these programs do.

Benny has built his business around planning for the future, planning for change. And to fully understand how he got there, we've got to go back to how he grew up. Yeah, let's backtrack a little. Okay, so I'm the first generation American. Both my parents were born in Europe. My mother came over here in 1969 during the height of the Cold War. His mom was born in Czechoslovakia, which was under Soviet leadership at the time and is now known as the Czech Republic. She just didn't see much of a future for herself in a communist country and couldn't really imagine continuing her life there.

So she came and fled to America and escaped communism to start a new life here. And my father also fled persecution to come to America. Benny describes his parents as super smart, entrepreneurial, educated, heady, artsy types. but it was hard finding work as immigrants in a new country. So they tried to start a bunch of businesses on their own. They had Benny and his brother. They moved around a lot. They lived in California and Colorado and Maine.

They did interior design and taught English as a second language. They even had a bed and breakfast. But Benny says they always had kind of a tough time getting their businesses to take hold. I remember when we were about, I was like, I don't know, eight. And my mom wanted to open an ice cream shop. So she rented this space, got this. awning, like, guss heated up, made it look beautiful, and then wouldn't charge anybody for ice cream. It was a really bad business model because she wanted to sell ice cream to kids, but felt bad

charging the kids for ice cream. I don't even think that is a business model. No, it was so bad. And so my friends and I just used to go there after school and just like drink the soda and like eat the candy and then like just watch my mom does not charge anybody for ice cream. And I was like, all right, well, this isn't going to work for very long. didn't, she had to close the shop like two months later. Eventually, his family settled down in Vermont where Benny went to high school.

In high school, I was definitely a rebel. I got kicked out of two high schools. I was a complete up. Benny says at the time, he was just being a punk. But in hindsight, he says the schools he was thrown into in Vermont just didn't work for him. He felt overwhelmed and unchallenged and unstimulated. He was smart. He got good grades. But my attendance, my behavior, my attitude was so poor that it caused me to actually get, you know, removed from multiple high schools. So by the time he was a junior in high school and starting to even consider college, he thought there was no chance of him getting into any school because of his record. Until one day I was hanging out at a friend's house and this kid walked up to me and said,

Benny, do you want this? And he had a folder in his hands and it was a manure envelope. And in that folder was all of my disciplinary records ever. because at the time they kept them on paper. They didn't put them into a digital system. He was in a detention, and he saw my disciplinary record in the principal's office and stole it and gave it to me. Benny got into his top choice school, Bennington College, a place he thought was for smart weirdos like him who didn't fit into the normal school system. He studied political science and economics, art and philosophy. Then after college, I graduated and I was like, oh, I'm so prepared for the job world.

And I was so wrong. I literally couldn't get a job anywhere. He eventually took a job at a staffing agency, hated it and he quit, which means it definitely wasn't a job at Express Employment Professionals. He then got a job as a receptionist at McCann, the ad agency of Madman fame. And he was super interested in McCann's U.X department and ended up shadowing there, getting his first taste of coding. in the tech world, which he loved. You got a full-time U.X coding job afterwards at a different agency.

And then about three years later, I was working a UX job that I really liked, but I kind of looked back and I said to myself, I was like, how did I get here? Like, I didn't study UX in college. I didn't know what I was going to do. Wait, wait, wait, wait, sorry. What happened to the Manila folder with the one with all your records?

It's at my house, yeah, it's so funny. You have it? Yeah, it's still. I still have it at my house. How does that make you feel? Do you feel guilty about it at all? Oh, that's a good question. Do I feel guilty?

No, I don't feel guilty that I got into college. Like, the system wasn't working for me, and it was so obviously not working, that I had to make it work. And that was the only way. Like, there was no, if I, I'd much rather be a productive member of system. society than an unproductive member of society. And I can't see how I would have gotten to where I am right now if that kid had not stolen that manila folder.

So, yeah, do I feel bad? No. Do I think the system is broken? Yes. We'll get back to our story in a second. First, a word from express employment professionals. A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done. sweats over the details this is you but to get an honest day's work you need a response you need a callback

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Plus, we'll never charge a fee to find you a job. At Express, we can put you to work with companies of all sizes and industries, from the production floor to the front office. Express knows jobs. Get to No Express. Find your location at ExpressPros.com or on the Express Jobs app. Now, back to On the Job. So, with this second chance mentality in mind, Ben, Ben, started Burlington Code Academy. Burlington Code Academy is an immersive, full-time program that prepares graduates to enter a new career as a web developer in 12 weeks. That's Benny's voice in a promo video for BCA right after they got started.

They were immediately getting really positive feedback from students enrolling in the programs. It really is project-based learning. You're doing projects every single day in collaboration with other students. What sets BCA apart is that they recognize the problem with the tech work. world, that the technology itself is usually what keeps people away from these kinds of jobs. Yes. Unlike a lot of other boot camps, we actually don't accept students based off of technical skills. So you don't have to have any technical skills to come to our program at all. Small class size, so the teachers and the TAs are very accessible and always willing to help.

So Benny says to get into the program, you have to have people skills. You've got to be able to work on a team, have good verbal skills. You have to want to learn and work. want to work. That's for us helped a lot of folks who might have been shut out from other coding boot camps, get through our doors and into a tech job. It's a blast. And I just think if I could get to do this professionally, if this could be my job, that'd be great. Most of the people that have come through our doors, they're a lot like me, actually. They're not your prime candidate for a tech job. Benny's seen Walgreens cashiers quit their jobs and go to Burlington Cote Academy. and leave with jobs making $80,000 a year.

We've had parents, including single mothers, able to get a job that would allow them to work from home and take care of their kids. They've had people right off assembly lines, breathing noxious fumes, or people working tough manual labor jobs into old age, people in physical pain from their work, who were able to find more sedentary jobs like coding or software development.

We've had women be able to leave abusive relationships, relationships on multiple occasions because they've had the earning power to move out of their house after going to Burlington Code Academy. There's just been so many stories of people who have never thought that they were going to be a coder. They didn't think that they could do it until we existed. And you opened up in 2017. How many people have been to the program so far? So we've helped almost a couple hundred people find their first job in tech. Wow.

when you think about those stories, how does that make you feel, like as a person who was part of making them happen? I don't know. You know, I don't think about it that much, to be honest. And I probably should, but I don't. And I'll tell you why. Because Burlington Code Academy has done such a good job at amplifying the voices of folks who are in a lot of ways underserved or in some scenarios, underprivileged. And that's really great, but it's just not enough. It's really not.

It's really meaningful. The most meaningful part of my job is to hear when a student gets a job. That's absolutely, it makes everything worth it. Even the high highs and the low lows, it's when a student gets the job, that's what is the most important piece of what we do every day. But that's one student. And Burlington Code Academy has graduated a couple hundred people. and that's been three years now.

You know, it's like really great because you're doing it, but it's not at the level of which I want to. Benny's ambition is pretty daunting, to be honest. But talking with him, I get it. You know, he's helped 200 people in a very rural state find jobs in the coding and software development world. That's huge. But if the boot camps could help so many people,

so quickly, if the demand for them is that high, why aren't they the standard in so many rural areas? Your whole thing is that, not that like some people can't do these tech jobs, it's that they can't see them. So how would they even know how to go about it? Exactly. The way I think about it is if you are in the middle of West Virginia and near a coal mine, or even more rural than that, there is no college near you, would you ever consider college? You can't do what you can't say. Yeah, exactly. Like, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to go to your local community college and take a coding boot camp.

That should be a staple in their curriculum. And it will be. The reason he's so confident, because that is what he's doing now. In the last couple years, he started a new company called Upright Education, which will help colleges all over the country set up the same. same boot camp programs he started at Burlington Code Academy. He says with the enormous growth in community college over the last few decades, America's infrastructure to make these classes accessible is already there.

His goal is to just use it. The truth is the system isn't what we're trying to change. You have to work with the resources that are already available. These schools are working because colleges do work. They have uplifted the middle class. they have uplifted to lower income families. So it's working. Now we just need to make it work for the 21st century.

When you think about doing that in your head, do you imagine young Benny, who was kind of failed by the system? Are you kind of like making something for him? That's funny. These are all questions I've ever asked me and I've never thought about. I kind of more think about my parents, actually, because they were immigrants, you know, to this country.

And it was really hard for them. You know, they were like, floored by everything here, let alone, like, how the job market worked. The purpose of what we do is for people like my parents. The reason why we do it is because Benny went to college. Benny is a self-starter. Young Benny was also rebellious and probably up a lot on his own. But my parents didn't have an opportunity. They did everything they could to give my brother and I a good life,

and I think about what would I have been like if they would have had an opportunity to have gotten to a stable career earlier in their life. I'll be honest. Hearing Benny's story made me think about second chances in a way that I hadn't in a while. Like think of that punk kid you knew in high school, or maybe a family member who's been in and out of trouble and couldn't hold a job. Maybe it's you having a hard time knowing what you're going to do with your life. Maybe it's not that you don't fit into the world.

Maybe is that the world doesn't fit you. And given a manila folder, a second chance at finding something that works for you, what could you do with it? With a year that we've all been deeply affected by, I think most people can get down with the idea of a do-over. And in spite of historically high unemployment numbers, Benny has made it his job to make sure people who need a second shot at least have the option to take it.

I'm not going to feel satisfied until we make a big dent in any of those numbers that I mentioned earlier. You got your work cut out for you. It'll work out. We'll get there. For On the Job, I'm Otis Gray. Thanks for listening to On The Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. This season of On The Job is produced by Audiation. The episodes were written and produced by me, Otis Gray.

Our executive producer is Sandy Smallins. The show is mixed by Matt Noble for Audiation Studios at the loft in Bronxville, New York. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on IHeart Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard, please consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time for more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work. All right. If you have ever dealt with a traditional home security company, you know the drill.

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That's half off at simplysafe.com slash bones. There's no safe like SimplySafe. Service opens doors. And at American Military University, it can open doors for the whole family. If you have a loved one who served in the military, you may qualify for reduced tuition. AMU offers flexible online programs designed to fit your schedule so you can keep moving forward wherever life takes you. Learn more at AMU. APUS.

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