NATALIE VAN KLEEF CONLEY: Hi, my name
is Natalie Van Kleef Conley.
I'm product lead for the Google IT Professional Certificates,
which are part of Grow with Google, our company's
initiative to create economic opportunity.
Removing barriers to opportunity was a large part
of why we created the Google IT Professional Certificates.
And today, I'm thrilled to tell you why those efforts are near
and dear to my heart.
I grew up in a small town in New Jersey,
the middle of three sisters, raised by a single mother.
My mom taught seventh grade special education,
and I have memory upon memory of the role her students played
in our lives.
My grandfather used to dress up as Santa Claus
and bring a big meal and presents for the kids
to my mom's classroom.
My mom instilled in us and in her students
that education holds the promise of a better future.
I later learned that this is true only
for those who have access to it.
I was fortunate that several key opportunities
helped me get the access I needed to succeed.
After high school, I went on to Boston College
as a very unmoneyed kid at a moneyed institution.
Each semester I worried about getting
pulled out of college because we couldn't afford it,
no matter how many work study jobs I took on.
And then in my senior year, I received a college scholarship
from my favorite professor, and graduated.
I never forgot the power of that opportunity.
So it's no coincidence that carving out similar ones
has been the focus of my work.
Despite challenges, I had access to education.
I was much luckier than about 2/3
of Americans who do not have a college degree.
I went on to spend a large part of my career in academia,
working in the Admissions office at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education.
While working full time, I got my master's there
in Higher Education with a focus on access and equity.
It was almost fully paid for by the university,
another powerful opportunity that
unlocked access to education.
I then came to Google to join a new team focused
on expanding the number of candidates
from non-traditional educational backgrounds for roles
in software engineering and in IT support.
We really struggled to find qualified candidates
for the IT support role.
But we also knew that qualified didn't
have to mean having a four-year college degree.
I went on to run Google's IT support program from 2014
to 2016, and forged a partnership
with a nonprofit organization for low income young adults
that many of you are likely familiar with, called Year Up.
Together, we built a training and hiring pathway
into IT support internships and roles at Google.
It includes an apprenticeship, two summer IT internships,
and a full-time role in the IT support program.
The foundation of this effort was a full college scholarship
program I launched to help Year Uppers get
an associate degree in IT at our local community college.
We built this program because I knew well
the power of a college scholarship.
Even though the typical graduation rate for low income
students at two-year colleges is just 13%,
two years into our program, 87% percent of Year Uppers,
on average, were accepted to their internships and on track
to get their degrees.
This gave us powerful evidence that, A,
IT is a relatively teachable field,
and B, if we could prioritize skills-based trainings
over traditional degree requirements,
we could create real paths to jobs.
We knew we couldn't be the only company struggling
to hire IT support talent.
In fact, prior to COVID, there were over 215,000 unfilled jobs
in IT support in the US.
And the majority of these roles do not
require a four-year college degree.
They're not just jobs.
They're good jobs.
The median salary is almost $53,000 a year,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
So I had a kernel of an idea in my head
aimed at creating more access to education.
And because I'm from Jersey and I was raised by a strong woman,
I was determined to see it come to life.
So we set out on this adventure to create
a hands-on online curriculum designed
to prepare beginner learners for entry level roles
in under six months.
It was developed by a team of full-time engineers
at Google who committed their nights and their weekends
to helping to create it.
We launched the Google IT Support Professional
Certificate on Coursera, an online learning platform,
in January 2018.
More than two years later, the program
is the number one most popular certificate on Coursera,
out of 1,145 specializations.
It's proven to be a strong entry point
for non-traditional talent into tech.
The program enrolls a high percent
of nontraditional learners.
58% identify as Black, Latino, female, or veteran.
61% do not have a college degree.
And 45% are in the bottom 1/3 in terms of in the nation,
reporting less than $30,000 in annual income.
We are so proud of what our learners accomplish.
They achieve 2 and 1/2 times the completion rate
of comparable content on Coursera.
80% said the program helped them advance their job search
or career within six months.
This includes finding a new job or getting a raise
or starting a new business, as well as
enhancing skills for a current role,
or improving their ability to get a new job.
One of those learners is Yves Cooper.
While working as a van driver in Washington DC,
Yves took our program through Merit America,
a Google.org funded organization that helps
working adults find new skills.
Within five days of completing the program,
he was offered a role as an IT help desk technician,
a change that set him on a career path
that he's excited about.
Yves's story is a testament to what learners can achieve when
they're given opportunities.
And now more than ever, online skilling
is essential to preparing for a highly uncertain future.
So how did we get there?
First, we took a practice-based approach.
The program tackles that classic job seekers dilemma,
where you can't get the job without the experience,
and you can't get the experience without the job.
So throughout this online training,
learners engage in a mix of hands-on labs
and other interactive assessments
so that they can troubleshoot just
like they would on the job.
Second, the program is designed end
to end to support nontraditional learners.
The certificate is philanthropically funded
by Google.org and does not generate any revenue to Google.
It has an explicit focus on creating economic opportunity
for overlooked groups, with Google.org
funding 10,000 scholarships to support veterans, refugees,
and low income learners from select nonprofits.
We were also laser-focused on building
a diverse and inclusive curriculum.
So for example, we incorporated over 50 non-technical videos
into the curriculum that showcase the personal stories
of Google employees.
Our learners meet an IT support specialist turned security
engineer from the Deaf community,
several female executives, and a veteran of the US Navy.
They talk about coming from humble beginnings,
struggling with imposter syndrome,
and relying on grit and determination
to achieve their goals.
Our curriculum is rooted in this very basic belief
that it should have a heart and a soul that
resonates with all learners.
Research also consistently shows the importance
of social networks in labor market outcomes.
And learners from overlooked backgrounds
often face challenges with the job search and interview
process due to lower social capital.
So to support learners in their career search,
we also embed job prep resources throughout the curriculum,
like a suite of Google-created resume and interview prep
videos, downloadable IT support-specific
resume templates, free virtual interview practice, and a job
board that features local, regional, and national IT
support roles.
Third, we created a direct path to jobs.
We brought together a hiring consortium
of around 50 national employers, like Walmart, Sprint, Hulu,
and of course, Google, dedicated to considering
hiring those who complete the certificate for their roles.
So the effort calls upon individual employers
to shift their focus from competing for talent to having
a joint responsibility to develop a pipeline that's
needed to build the workforce.
Fourth, we created a stackable pathway.
So because IT support isn't just a job, it's a career path,
in January, we launched a follow-on program called
the Google Automation with Python Professional
Certificate.
This six-course program provides beginner-level training
in Python, which is now the most in demand programming
language by employers.
The IT Support Professional Certificate
was designed from the very beginning with scale in mind.
And here's how.
First, we challenged ourselves to solve
for something much bigger than the problem actually required.
Our immediate issue was that we had
a hiring challenge at Google.
But many other companies had the same challenge,
so why not solve for that?
This is why we aligned the content with the broader
needs of the industry, rather than focusing
on proprietary, enterprise-specific
technologies.
In the IT Support Professional Certificate,
the content, the products, the platforms that are taught
are all Google agnostic.
The program is designed for learners
to jumpstart their careers at any company across any sector.
Second, we thought beyond the online-only nature
of the program.
Inspired by the Pathways to Prosperity work created
by Bob Schwartz, the Harvard Graduate School of Education,
and JFF, we set out to scale the program to community colleges
at the systems level.
Community colleges, as many of you know,
have unparalleled reach in their communities,
play a critical role in workforce development,
and are a strong proxy for economic disadvantage.
14% of community college students in the US
are experiencing homelessness.
And one in three go hungry while pursuing a degree.
So we provided a Google.org grant to JFF,
given their strong expertise in workforce development,
to bring the certificate to 100 community colleges
across 21 states this year.
A third key to scale was ensuring that the program had
a modular and flexible design.
Because the Google certificate is broad
and can map to a wide range of courses and programs,
we took a modular approach, which
gave faculty and institutional leaders more options
to integrate or reformulate it.
They can offer learners credit for prior learning,
integrate the certificate into one or multiple courses
within their IT curriculum, or offer it as a standalone.
And of course, faculty drive the pedagogical approach.
Fourth, there can be no shortcuts around quality.
If you have a shot at scale, your program
must meet the highest standards of quality,
both to provide a strong user experience
and to gain market signal.
For example, we secured a credit recommendation
from the American Council on Education's ACE CREDIT,
the industry standard for translating workplace
learning to college credit.
Learners can earn 12 college credits
for completing the program, which
is the equivalent of four college courses
at the associate degree level.
The certificate was also selected from 160 submissions
as one of 10 winning programs in the US
Department of Education's EDU 2030 Higher Education Ecosystem
Challenge.
We're humbled and quite encouraged
by this recommendation.
Lastly, good partnerships enable scale.
If we're not working with other organizations
in the economic opportunity space,
this is all a zero-sum game.
So in addition to our hiring consortium,
we teamed up with CompTIA, a nonprofit trade association.
Employers widely recognize CompTIA's A+ certification
as a valued credential for IT support roles.
And now learners who complete the Google certificate and pass
CompTIA's A+ certification exams have access to a dual
credential from CompTIA and Google,
which is a badge that can be posted on LinkedIn to catch
the attention of potential employers.
Now I'll close with a few takeaways.
If you're on the hiring side, you
know that your organization's best work
will come when your workforce reflects the world around you.
Today more than ever, as the economy shifts,
companies must have a laser focus
on hiring non-traditional talent.
Here are some ideas to get you started.
First, ensure that recruiters are
trained to look for signals of grit and self-direction,
like project work, for example.
In ever-changing fields like technology,
employees need to constantly learn to keep up.
And this grit quotient is crucial.
Second, look for candidates who are helpers,
like those who have a track record of volunteer work.
This will add to the strength of your organization's culture.
And then a few takeaways for those of you
who build programs like ours or support people who do.
First, start small to build momentum.
The Google IT Professional Certificate
was born out of an initial effort
to work with a nonprofit organization
to help build a small talent pipeline into Google.
Then once you've got momentum, start to think bigger.
There's no better time for innovative thinking than now.
I think the IT Support Certificate has been successful
because we thought beyond the immediately obvious impact.
This became more than a pipeline program into Google.
We thought about getting people on paths
to jobs across any company, across any sector.
Stay close to the impact.
The danger of scale is that you can easily lose proximity
if you're not careful.
Finding ways to connect your work back to the people
you're building it for, if even virtually, is so important.
My mother was a transformative educator
because she was at the front lines in her students' lives.
Today, me and my team obsess over learner feedback.
We talk to educators and leaders in the field.
And we are constantly learning through their experience.
And lastly, your idea, your program, your product
is only as good as the people behind it.
I now have a team of four bright and committed women,
each of whom see this work as much more than a job.
And it's been the highlight of my career to work with them.
I never underestimate the power of women on a mission.
Thank you for your time today.
It was a real pleasure sharing this story with you.