With federal funds in hand, Michigan health IT training company MedCerts and the Education Partnership for IT Careers (EPIC) are taking on the region’s IT talent gap.
In partnership with the SkillUp Coalition, they’re adding eligibility in DC and Northern Virginia for an 18-week IT training program, which includes an additional 1-2 weeks of exam prep. It’s designed to help train area residents and get them IT-certified at little to no cost.
For those that qualify, the program can be completed remotely and on a trainee’s own time for free, courtesy of a federal grant, and the cost of exams is also taken care of. Students can be trained in A+ and Network+, among other certifications.
The course already has 48 students set to graduate by the end of the year, and will continue accepting area residents on a rolling basis.
Sandy Mead, national director of workforce development at MedCerts, said that the program will accept any and all students that qualify, with no numerical cap. MedCerts and SkillUp already expanded into Maryland earlier this year, hoping to add IT certification options in the area.
“Our goal is to provide short-term training that begins a career with little debt,” Mead told Technical.ly. “We don’t want students to get out of our programs and have to pay for the next 10 to 20 years to pay for their education.”
Through the program, EPIC and MedCerts are partnering with county-level workforce agencies, including Employ Prince George’s, WorkSource Montgomery, Tri-County Council for Southern Maryland, Baltimore County Economic & Workforce Development and Frederick County Workforce Services for employment placement following graduation.
Nationally, Mead said that MedCerts has trained 35,000 students already. The company looked to expand in the DC area specifically because of the thousands of tech job openings in the area. According to Mead, the DMV area has 19,000 openings in tech and IT.
“DC is the number two metro area [nationally] for technical jobs,” Mead said. “It’s a perfect fit to get some residents there in DC trained to fill all those open IT positions.”
Our goal is to provide short-term training that begins a career with little debt.
The EPIC and MedCerts program, Mead said, incorporates 12 elements of learning, complete with interactive simulations and activities in its training process. The certifications, she added, all meet the requirements of the US Department of Labor, and program partners also do outreach with local companies for job placement following certification.
With the shift to remote-first work and the pressing need for IT talent in the area, Mead said now is an especially perfect time to enter the field.
“The IT career is ever-changing,” Mead said. “It definitely is a career opportunity that will keep you on your toes and keep you learning, and the income opportunities are huge. IT is a career field with six-figure income growth opportunities. So if you are IT-savvy, the IT career field is definitely a great choice.”
MedCerts and EPIC are holding an informational webinar for the program November 16 to provide application information. Register here.
This editorial article is a part of How to Get a Tech Job Month of Technical.ly's editorial calendar. This month’s theme is underwritten by Flatiron School. This story was independently reported and not reviewed by Flatiron before publication.
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