Many people wonder whether it is possible to follow an IT traineeship without a higher professional education or university diploma. This is because traineeships often require a higher professional or university level of thinking. However, a diploma or previous education in IT is not the only indicator that determines whether you are smart enough for an IT traineeship. In fact, it is often not a good indicator at all. There can be countless reasons why you didn’t graduate, even though you do have the talent to become an IT champion.
Successful IT people are therefore not infrequently drop-outs. Famous examples like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates speak volumes. This is partly due to the fact that IT professionals are often self-taught. They would rather develop themselves by putting together a computer in their attic than by studying for exams for days on end. Recognizable? 😉
80/20 ratio
This inquisitive self-taught attitude suits IT: a field in which you have to constantly develop and master new techniques. This makes the field of work ideally suited for traineeships. No long full-time courses, but learning and developing while working. Most traineeships are based on about 20% theory and 80% practice. You will develop best by putting the theory directly into practice.
An IT traineeship is extremely suitable to support a self-taught person with theory and the right working environment to be able to grow. Performance-oriented, but always with an eye for the individual development of the trainee. At least that’s how traineeships should work, in our opinion.
In practice, however, it is often different. Trainees are extensively trained in the shortest possible time in order to be as easily deployable to clients. After a short and intensive training course, they are expected to work 100% billable immediately, as if they were ‘normal’ employees. A year later you look back on your traineeship and you still cannot call yourself a ‘specialist’, because you are too generally educated and have mainly gained a lot of work experience, without having received a really high-quality education.
Very annoying, especially if you have no diplomas!
We don’t think that’s fair. We believe that trainees deserve a training program in which they can develop in what they want. With high-quality certificates that are valued. Moreover, in IT you are never done learning! In addition to a short and intensive training course at the start of the traineeship, trainees must also remain challenged during the working period to constantly learn and develop themselves. That is our vision on traineeships, and the basis of our modern version of the IT traineeship: the Challengership. Because every day in IT is a challenge and because we challenge you to learn something every day.
The Challengership
The Challengership is for the ambitious career switcher. With or without a degree, it doesn’t matter. If we are convinced that you have the right cognition, personality and motivation, the Challengership offers you all the tools to develop yourself to the fullest. Do you want to go front-end or do you want to focus your career on back-end development? Or do you find both so interesting that you want to go into full-stack development? Then we look for a client where you can develop yourself in that direction and we create your custom training, matched to your ambitions and the technology stack of your client.
You choose the client yourself. We match a client’s work culture and job requirements with your personality and your tech ambitions, in order to get a good match on paper. Does it feel good to you too? Then you can get started at a client that really suits you and where you can develop to the fullest.
An additional advantage of the good match: 86% of our trainees are offered a permanent job at their client after the Challengership! And that is our ultimate success.
We can’t imagine a better kickstart for career switchers, with or without a diploma.
Do you want to kickstart your IT career in a Challengership? Check out the Young_Coders website for more info and register.