Mindy Thomas

Career Chat – Mindy Thomas Interviews Lossie Freeman

Mindy Thomas:

Hi everyone. I’m Mindy Thomas, and this is Career Chat. We air every Monday at 11:30 AM and Tuesdays at 8:00 PM. You know, software runs the world from our iPhones to our coffee makers, to our cars. Software is everywhere and behind the software. We have to have people that write the code with that said there is an untapped market out there, and I am really privileged today to introduce you to my next guest Lossie Freeman the director of corporate partnerships of Zip Code Wilmington, a nonprofit boot camp that trains individuals in just 12 weeks to land positions in technology. Lossie. Welcome to career chat.

Lossie Freeman:

Thank you.  Good morning.

Mindy Thomas:

Good morning. Lossie. You have had; besides working this wonderful job at Zip Code Wilmington, I just have to mention your career has been illustrious from working at a university or actually attending a university abroad in Shanghai to working at the consulate, to going to wall street, then working as a consultant for JP Morgan, then a special assistant to the mayor of Wilmington, where you built an employment infrastructure for individuals and trying to get unemployed, unemployed people back to work. And now as the director of corporate partnerships or Zip Code Wilmington, you have a very big mission in mind, help us to understand, help us understand what you do. And what does zip code do for the folks out there that are looking to reoccurring?

Lossie Freeman:

Right. Thank you so much for having me on allowing me the opportunity to talk about this wonderful organization. So Zip Code Wilmington is one of less than a dozen nonprofit coding boot camps. In the United States. We were founded in 2015 by three local prominent businessmen who saw this need. They saw that we were primarily a banking city and that jobs really move where the people are, where the talented people are, and that we have a shortage of tech talent. So this was really an experiment. And over the past five years, since we were created, we have trained over 400 software developers. Um, most of whom have gotten employment within the city limits about 75% remained in the area, uh, with their new jobs. So we’re really proud. Our mantra is that tower distributed evenly opportunity is not. So the entire purpose of zip code Wilmington was to create opportunities. Everybody who has an interest and a place where they can come and learn, get reskilled, upskilled, and inter brand new profession, that’s in really high demand.

Mindy Thomas:

It’s, uh, it’s pretty amazing that you can do that in 12 weeks.Lossie. I know that your job as director of corporate partnerships is really to make those connections so that the graduates actually land jobs when they’re finished that certificate program.

Lossie Freeman:

Yes. What else do you feel that unique feature about Zip Code Wilmington is that we’re not just an educational training, uh, organization that we actually help our students with the job placement that we were designed with that in mind. So we started with the career with the partnerships. So it was reverse engineered where we went to the business and said, what is it that you need? What would you hire? So that we could get a really core curriculum in the 12 weeks that our students could hit the ground running once they graduated. So the model is that students pay a small amount upfront for the education when they placed with a corporate partner, the corporate partner that reimburses the remainder of the tuition.

Mindy Thomas:

That’s amazing that the corporate partner that they now have a job with actually pays back the money for their education. So let’s talk about dollars and cents for our audience. What is the fee to attend the 12 week program? What is the admissions process look like and how competitive is your program?

Lossie Freeman:

Oh, so it is quite competitive to get in. Uh, we typically receive about 450 applications for 25 to 35 spots. We run three cohorts a year with those 25 to 35 individuals, and they go through a rigorous process. Uh, if you go on line at zipcodewilmington.com, you will find information and material that you can study and prepare for the, for the entrance process. We want to make sure that people have a real aptitude for coding and a real interest. That’s genuine that this is not a fleeting idea. This is a real commitment. It requires total dedication for the three months that people are in this program. We encourage people to not have part time jobs. It’s a full time program of it is intense weekends nights. You’re working with a team to deliver a product at the end. There’s a capstone project. So we really need people to be focused on it.

Lossie Freeman:

We do information. We did group interviews where we look for behavior. We want to make sure that we’re recruiting team players. So we do some really interesting stuff. Our director of education, uh, Dan stab does, uh, a Lego exercise where the students actually, it’s almost like the telephone game. When you have to build something out of Legos, we’re looking for all aspects of employability, not just that aptitude. Um, you asked the price of our program. Um, for the last five years, the cost of our program has been $3,000 to the student and $12,000 reimbursed by the corporate partner when they’re hired. That makes Zip Code Wilmington whole at $15,000 per person. We already self-sustaining nonprofit. So when we recoup those, those tuition fees, it covers the cost of us providing this wonderful service. Uh, unfortunately due to COVID, we’ve had to adjust our percentage of who pays what, so now the students pay 6,000 upfront and the corporate partner pays 6,000 on the back end just for us to be able to, to meet our expenses and not have to wait three months to get, get the money that we need to, to maintain our operations.

Mindy Thomas:

Well, it sounds like a wonderful opportunity for people that are looking to transition from their careers and many, many Americans. Uh, those, some industries are just flat out there. They’re done. Um, can you give us some idea about the quality and the quantity? Well, maybe just give us an idea about the type of people that have transitioned. I mean, like what kind of folks have transitioned into this program?

Lossie Freeman:

Well, you won’t be surprised in India. It’s a fabulous story. Um, well, many people think about training and education. They think about younger people, the 18 to 24 year olds, surprisingly our average age is 30. So we get people who have retired from, from earlier professions or people who’ve done a lot of different jobs and kind of floated through different things and not settle on anything. Um, a lot of times we get people who had a love for it earlier in life, and then like that in the way things came up, they had to take other jobs. Uh, lots of people who had some college credits who may have had a dropout or life reasons. And they find a Zip Code Wilmington is a wonderful place to get started again because of that short time period and because of the low cost of entry. So we’ve had a lot of people that have people who have been women like me, who stayed home with Amber, having children.

Lossie Freeman:

We have a lot of people like that who are looking to reenter the workforce and want to brush up on skills or completely changed careers. Um, we have a lot of people who actually have an it background, interestingly, uh, who didn’t have, uh, inroads at a particular company because we set up what we felt power interview week. And we introduced them to our hiring partners. It kind of increases their likelihood of landing a job. Um, so that that’s kind of the value. And some of the people we’ve had some, some really wonderful, amazing stories. We’ve had people come to Zip Code Wilmington. Uh, one of our instructors actually aged out of foster care was a social worker, had a love ride. T is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met, changed. The zip code, got a job at JP Morgan, worked for a while and then wanted to come back and give something back to for that. He thought that he’d gotten out as zip code. And now he’s one of our best instructors. Oh my goodness is on package delivery folks. We’ve had postal workers. We’ve had teachers just it’s for anybody.

Mindy Thomas:

What’s the most unusual background that’s come through zipcode Wilmington.

Lossie Freeman:

Uh, I just started in August, but I’d say one of the most unusual and a story that that really touches my heart is a student that we had, um, who lived in Puerto Rico. So after hurricane Maria, while she was in Puerto Rico, she was the sole breadwinner for her family after the hurricane. And she was biking 15 miles to work as a cashier at Kmart. Oh, she heard about our program. I think there were cousins who lived in the area and knew about it. And her first night away from home was her final interview forZip Code Wilmington. She came here, she succeeded, she’s just amazingly brilliant and completed our program. And now works as the software developer making more money than anybody in our families. That’s amazing the stories that touch my heart and make me really proud to work. It’s a phone.

Mindy Thomas:

So that’s a truly inspiring story. Now I’d like to bring up a slide that you shot me last week on the demand. Let’s look at exactly what’s going on here for the, uh, demand in software development. Can you walk us through this graph for our audience?

Lossie Freeman:

Yes, absolutely. So this slide is a little bit dated as we’re already in 2020. This slide came out a few years ago and really is sort of the impetus for what you were seeing behind the development and creation of zipcode Wilmington. There are many, many, many more technology jobs than there are computer science and software development graduates to fill those jobs. And that number represents about 500 billion in income in wages that could be earned if we have the talent trained to be able to fill these jobs. So that that graph really shows you the shortage and that it’s growing. That’s an upward trend. So while we’re in 2020 now, I think we fully can predict that chart to continue to increase. And if you look at the Bureau of labor statistics, which were really driven by that, we’re looking at the demand for those jobs, data engineering is also on that list. And that’s a brand new training program that we just launched in February and graduated our most recent and inaugural cohort for data engineering.

Mindy Thomas:

Let’s talk about the two programs that you target with your students. You’ve got data engineering, right? And what’s the

Lossie Freeman:

A Java software developer that’s really object oriented development within Java lens. So our developers really will learn many, many throughout their career. This is really just a jumpstart for them to get started on their first coding language, which is Java script type script. But as we know, software developers are wired and have to be hard wired for change. So this is the beginning of a lifelong career of learning new languages. We have people are some of our partners hire for more than Java. So while we’re teaching Java, they may hire for.net. They may hire to cobalt, which is sort of an antiquated, but there are lots of different language of businesses. Just it’s really the skill that we’re teaching as our executive director, diesel likes to say is the ability to learn and unlearn and relearn, and this cycle goes on and on. So that’s really what we’re building

Mindy Thomas:

Well, it’s interesting, you know, two major programs, two lanes, the demand is just crazy. I can’t believe what you’ve showed me on that chart. Um, and it looks like there’s not enough. Uh, for once we can say not enough graduates to fill those jobs because the job opportunities are endless. When we come, we take a short break, but when we come back, I want to talk about the aptitude, the ideal candidate, and what is required for admission into the Zip Code Wilmington in just a minute, please stay with us,

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Lossie Freeman:

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Mindy Thomas:

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Lossie Freeman:

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Mindy Thomas:

If you’re just joining us, I have a very special guests with me today.Lossie Freeman, who is the director of corporate partnerships coming out of zipcode, Wilmington,Lossie. We are back at career chat. Let’s talk about the software running of the world. You just mentioned. Look at Amazon, look at zoom. Let’s talk about that. What do you think about all those companies? Just really, uh, just exploding right now?

Lossie Freeman:

Yeah, we’ve found it really interesting while there’s definitely a softening in the market. And we know there are 40 million people who are currently unemployed due to this just wildly unprecedented pandemic that we’ve not experienced before. In the packs that you look at many of the winners, they happen to be technology firms talking about Amazon, or even some of the healthcare companies that use a lot of software on the data engineering. And think about all of the data that’s going behind trying to get a hold of the pandemic and figuring out how many people are infected or how many, you know, all of those numbers are being crunched probably by data engineers. So I still think that there is going to be a strong demand for software developers, particularly in those environments, as people are working from home, um, even restaurants are using software now to get, uh, deliveries made and inventory your grocery store. Now, how many of you are using Instacart? Right? Software developers, design, all of that infrastructure.

Mindy Thomas:

Yeah. And a lot of people don’t even know that it’s interesting. You know, you, you really need to have an aptitude to, uh, enter a software development program. So let’s talk about what your ideal candidate looks like. Now. I know they come from all walks of life, but what kind of natural skill do they need to become a software developer?

Lossie Freeman:

I think we’ve really tried to reduce those barriers to saying that you have to have a formal background or education or already know how to code you really don’t. You really have to have an inquisitive nature. You have to have intellectual curiosity and a high degree of intelligence, uh, ability to reason, um, and work through problems, problem solving. And again, as we mentioned, none of that is any good. If you don’t have the people skills and the ability to work with a team, but it’s really about, about an interest. Um, and the meticulous nature of, of wanting to get into the detail of things. It’s a very detail oriented, uh, role. So we’re really just looking for people with an interest. We provide a lot of the material online. So someone who was interested could go to our website, look through the material, go through the exercises and the training, and then they take an assessment.

Lossie Freeman:

A lot of people don’t pass the assessment on the first go round could fly again. We have lots of people who have applied for Zip Code Wilmington. Didn’t get accepted the first time, try it again and made it in. So it’s persistence and in practice, it’s definitely not something that’s easy for some people, it comes a little bit easier than others, but it is something that you can learn. I predict that we’re all going to have to learn how to develop software at some level in my lifetime. I think it will be the new second languages required. If we look at education, only 5% of us students take any type of software development to graduate high school in China, a hundred percent of all students in their K through 12 equivalent education learn to code. Are you serious? Did not know that that’s some catching up to do. We finally got some inroads to me earlier to bridge that gap with the skills gap we’re going to need software developers.

Mindy Thomas:

Well, I know you went abroad, uh, and did university, uh, training over in Shanghai, correct? It did. What, what do you think was the biggest takeaway from that?

Lossie Freeman:

I think there are people all over the world that are working very, very, and that when I tell my 11 year old son, and I say that your competition is not the kids in your classroom, they’re not the kids in your school. They’re not even the kids in your city or state competition is global, global competition worldwide. And as a global citizen, I’d love for more Americans to really become aware of that and think at a, on a broader scale. And I think globalization has brought that about in a very real way.

Mindy Thomas:

You also worked at the us consulate overseas.

Lossie Freeman:

I did, I briefly worked at the us consulate in the economic political section. Um, and Gwen Jones is the area where a lot of the exports comments where most of the economic, um, industry happens in China. It was when I was there several years ago. So it’s been a very interesting journey. Um, you were very, very helpful for me in relaunching my career. I took some time out to stay at home with my son when he was born. And I can tell you to marry me entering the career, uh, world and world of business was not easy. You were instrumental in that and I’m eternally grateful to

Mindy Thomas:

Goodness, Lossie. You have. I’ve been watching you grow since then. And thank you for your kind compliment. I, um, have always loved that you, you have, um, an intense need to learn and you are a global citizen and you have a love of diversity and inclusion. And I love right now that you are working at Zip Code Wilmington and putting into action, your desire to help others. And, and that’s what you do as the director of corporate partnerships. Now admission to the school. Let’s get back to that because my understanding is you need a high school diploma or a GED. Will you take a GED?

Lossie Freeman:

Yes, absolutely. A high school is the only prerequisite required. If you can pass the assessments and I’ll tell you some of our most brilliant candidates have had just a high school diploma, we really believe truly and deeply believed given an opportunity. Anybody can shine. It doesn’t matter where you were born or what your access has been in the past. We’re here to break down those barriers and provide opportunity for any, and everybody who is interested in this. That’s what I love about it. And that’s what really touches my heart and what makes us so special are the stories. So, you know, people may want to compare us to a four year degree or other education programs where students can pay $15,000 to do training. There’s so many people that can’t afford to do that. And those people are now excluded from industries where they can be incredible assets. Um, so we’re really proud to break down those barriers and allow anybody who’s interested, a chance to, to have a great opportunity. The average salary of people, when they enter Zip Code Wilmington, we don’t want to go there. Go ahead. 28,000. By the time they leave in their employed, after zip code, the average was up to $74,000 a year. So you’re

Mindy Thomas:

Average salary of incoming student is $28,000 a year. And it can go up to 80

Lossie Freeman:

That’s right? Or more average is about 74,000 after they completed Zip Code Wilmington program. That’s changing.

Mindy Thomas:

Impressive, impressive. I am just like, wow. Now, listen, I know that COVID had an impact on the school. We need to talk about that, but you guys were way ahead of the curve. You had already done online and moved everything to online. Yes.

Lossie Freeman:

Well, by the time the governor issued the shutdown order, we were ready to go. Our executive director, a decent Burton was on it. Um, he’s a former Navy. And so she’s preparedness just was second nature to her. She was already preparing for online, uh, the eventuality of online. Now we, we pride our program on being an in person program. We’d never done online prior to phobic, but we very quickly pivoted to an online curriculum. And now with our latest cohort, that’s entering, we’re doing a hybrid model where there is some classrooms because we believe in that face to face the teamwork, the ability to interact for problem solving is really important. Someone just leaning over your shoulder and looking at your code and going, Oh, you need to change this or that. And that’s super important. But in this new environment, it’s not possible to do it a hundred percent. So we definitely were ahead of the curve. And I think that our graduates are really getting a skill that’s going to be useful. Many of them are interviewing now and entering new jobs solely online, solely virtual. So

Mindy Thomas:

They’re doing the zoom interview. They’re getting hired right through the interview and probably never showing up at the brick and mortar.

Lossie Freeman:

Absolutely. So do our students have an advantage with that? Absolutely.

Mindy Thomas:

Well, because you do do the resumes. You do zoom interviewing you, you do all kinds of job, uh, skills and, and interviewing to help them because not everyone knows how to navigate an interview. I mean, you could be as good as gold and get in front of someone and then just like blank, you know, and space out. So they have to get used to that. And I know that your school is driven towards helping students land the job. So they do whatever it takes, not many schools around like that. So what is the biggest distinction? Cause there’s a lot of boot camps. I researched them years ago with my daughter, from San Francisco to New York. What is the major distinctions of Zip Code Wilmington? If I’m out here researching schools right now for software development,

Lossie Freeman:

Thank you for that question. Um, we are markedly different from many of the other bootcamps in that we judge ourselves on our outcomes. So when you go to our website@zipcodewilmington.com, you will find our outcomes report and audited outcomes report. What we lead with is the graduation rate and the time to employment, uh, the, the salary of before you mentor and after you enter and everything that we do is geared towards the success of our students. Um, and I think being a nonprofit really puts us in a different category, uh, that we don’t see our competition as other bootcamps. We are one of a handful of nonprofit coding, boot camps here for our students and here for our corporate partners, because we were designed with a corporate partner in mind because we have a board with corporate partners who are part of that. It’s a steering committee where they provide input and help to direct the curriculum.

Lossie Freeman:

We are always on target with what they’re looking for. And I think that’s a distinction that we’ve got a direct pipeline to what hiring managers want. We don’t talk enough about it, but, but we really, in addition to providing the technology training, we provide countless hours of professional development. Many of our folks aren’t coming in this may be their very first professional corporate job. So we spend a lot of time on interviews on networking events. We have guest speakers that come in twice a week. So that’s six hours a week that they have someone who is in the business, a software developer or a hiring manager, or someone related to that field to talk to them about, about their job. They can ask questions and engage. And I think that that interaction is invaluable at five 30. I’ll say prior to COVID Zip Code Wilmingtonis, is a little bit like a cult, but it’s a family that people who go through it, it was so intensely connected to this experience or that they’re really wanting to get back to around five 30 people just stream into our school to help other students with their projects, to tutor, to talk to them, to come in and give presentations about their company and how they found it.

Lossie Freeman:

So that is one of the, one of the most beautiful things about our program. Every student interviews with each and every person on our professional team before they leave Zip Code Wilmington we work with them on resumes. We have a specialist who comes in and helps them do resume writing so that they’re definitely prepared in a 32nd commercial is ready to go.

Mindy Thomas:

Well, this is just an outstanding program and I always get goosebumps talking about it. Cause I come from that placement background and missions background. I just want to thank you so much for making time for us today,Lossie . So if anyone is interested in the program, they simply go to zip code wilmington.com. It’s great. Well, thank you again. Last, it was a real honor to interview you today to my viewing audience. Thanks for joining us. Remember that your career is your business and we need to run it like we’re a CEO. If you have any questions about the program, please contact me@thomascareerconsulting.com. Have yourself a good, a safe and happy week. And I will see you here next week.