March 4, 2020—A technical college's automotive technologies program has a 100 percent job placement rate, as the program requires all students to have a job while they are enrolled, reports The Reflector.
Clark College in Vancouver, Wash., graduates anywhere between 15 to 30 students from the Clark College Automotive Technologies Program and all of them are required to have a job before they start the program and hold it throughout their program. If not, the program's department head and instructor, Tonia Haney, says she will kick them out of the program.
Chris Rutledge, a recent graduate from the program, took advantage of the program's job requirement and graduated after two years completely debt-free. He's now employed at Dick Hannah Chrysler in Vancouver, Wash., where he worked as a technician while he was a student at the program.
Programs like this can be good framework for an apprenticeship program within your own shop. To get an idea of an effective apprenticeship program for your shop, take some inspiration from this shop owner on how he built a beneficial internship program to develop talented, long-term techs.
