General Assembly is partnering with Google to offer a new 12-week course in Android development to boost the number of mobile developers on its mobile operating system.
The initiative, as reported by Bloomberg, is pairing up job seekers looking for a career shift with technology companies looking for more mobile development talent. As Sarah Grant reports:
Google and General Assembly are luring students to the course with the promise of job placement opportunities. VICE Media will hire an apprentice right out of the course, said Ben Jackson, director of mobile applications at VICE Media. General Assembly has said in a statement that it will connect developers who finish the course with jobs in its hiring network, including data company Karma. "When students take the course and graduate, they're not just getting a piece of paper," said Peter Lubber, senior program manager at Google. "They're getting a job."
Boot camps' education-to-employment model gives students without a background in technology a quick and relatively low-cost way into a rapidly expanding field with high-paying jobs. "We're not guaranteeing mastery in 12 weeks, but we give people an on-ramp," Schwartz said.
General Assembly has seen tremendous growth lately as job seekers reboot their careers, and the company claims it sees a 99% placement rate for graduates in their field of study.
