Five Questions With: Shandi Hanna

SHANDI HANNA is the Rhode Island community engagement manager at LaunchCode, a St. Louis, Mo.-based nonprofit that helps place people in technology-centric jobs. / COURTESY LAUNCHCODE
SHANDI HANNA is the Rhode Island community engagement manager at LaunchCode, a St. Louis, Mo.-based nonprofit that helps place people in technology-centric jobs. / COURTESY LAUNCHCODE

A Rhode Island native, Shandi Hanna graduated from Rhode Island College with a bachelor’s degree in social work and worked in that field for 10 years. Now she is the Rhode Island community engagement manager at LaunchCode, a St. Louis, Mo.-based nonprofit that helps place people in technology-centric jobs.

PBN: Why do you think it is important for companies like LaunchCode, which matches employers with skilled workers, to exist in today’s technology-driven workplace?

HANNA: The tech-talent gap in America is growing. On either side there are companies that cannot keep up with finding the necessary talent to fill these jobs and passionate, skilled workers with nontraditional backgrounds who are screened out of the workforce based on a lack of traditional credentials. Traditional human resources practices screen out prospective developers who do not have a formal computer science degree or have gaps in their resume.

It is important for LaunchCode to exist in order to match employers with prospective technologists and vice versa. We’ve created a tech-talent pipeline, working with educational partners like the University of Rhode Island to provide free, world-class education to aspiring developers. We then help them develop coding projects that demonstrate their skills and help land an interview with our company partners. We vet all students and help place them with companies. We also help place people who come in with a high level of computer science knowledge into apprenticeships.

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PBN: How is technology driving today’s workforce in ways it didn’t a decade ago?

HANNA: Every company is a tech company. Employers in fields like health care, financial services, manufacturing and media all have a need for technology talent and that is growing exponentially. Workers who have technical skills are increasingly valuable to companies that are always trying to deliver products and services more efficiently. It’s critical to serve people who have a genuine desire to learn more about technology and that’s why LaunchCode carefully identifies and evaluates job seekers to determine whether or not they have that drive.

PBN: What opportunities for innovation and technology development do you see in Rhode Island’s future?

HANNA: One of the greatest assets Rhode Island has is leadership from Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, who realized early in her term there was a lot of room for innovation in how the state promotes workforce development and builds a business-friendly environment. There’s tremendous investment among business and civic leaders in new career pathways that allows people and industry to thrive.

Additionally, Rhode Island has a committed ecosystem of organizational partners like LaunchCode, Tech Collective and Opportunity@Work – all of which are building shared mechanisms for collecting, sharing and using data to make job training and hiring increasingly frictionless and transparent.

The Rhode Coders program, started by the Providence Public Library to serve as a stepping stone to LaunchCode’s program, is a great example of the variety of opportunities in our state. Schools like the University of Rhode Island and Community College of Rhode Island are offering college credit for our classes, while meetup groups like Free Code Camp Providence have offered sessions to support our students or help prep students for class. Those components all contribute to innovation and development in the tech arena.

PBN: After LaunchCode received a $350,000 Real Jobs Rhode Island implementation grant in March, they said they will help the Ocean State build a tech-talent pipeline. Can you describe that process and how well it’s going so far?

HANNA: LaunchCode’s partnership with Real Jobs Rhode Island is creating opportunities for people to access stable, high-paying tech jobs even if they lack a traditional four-year computer science degree. This effort promotes upward mobility, retains talent in the state and bolsters the local economy.

Since we launched the Rhode Island hub, we have enrolled more than 250 students into free education programs, with the second of two cohorts currently ongoing. We’ve conducted more than 100 candidate interviews and assessed nearly 90 candidates as apprenticeship-ready.

Through partnerships with companies like General Electric, Computer Associates and more, we’re able to retain a talented workforce in the Ocean State. An important aspect of LaunchCode’s apprenticeship model is the on-the-job mentoring that our companies provide for the apprentices they hire. Helping new team members adjust to the workload and culture is a great way for a company to attract and retain great talent.

PBN: One of your roles is to place apprentices in paid positions. How do you think the role of apprentices in the workplace are impacting the Rhode Island economy?

HANNA: LaunchCode’s apprenticeship program benefits the state’s economy by helping companies fill costly vacancies in their staff with passionate, hardworking individuals who arrive with a desire to learn. Through our program, employers have an opportunity to train apprentices in the specific skills needed for their workforce. Companies have three months to test apprentices to ensure it’s a good fit for both parties. Our apprentices, many of whom were unemployed or underemployed before landing a full-time apprenticeship, now have money to contribute to the local economy and help their families. This refuels Rhode Island’s businesses and our local economy.

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