A New Career Path Led John Bobst to Wedded Bliss and Financial Security

When John Bobst set out to make a career change, his primary goal was achieving better financial stability. He never imagined he’d end up meeting the woman who would become his wife.

Before pursuing a career in the tech industry, John graduated college with a Bachelor’s degree in psychology. He became a therapist, working with children on the autism spectrum. While he found the work rewarding, his salary didn’t support his dream of becoming financially independent. 

So John began teaching himself how to code. Eventually, he landed a job as a web developer for a small company. When he was ready to move on, however, he discovered he needed more training and decided to enroll in a coding bootcamp. Along with hands-on training, John got an unexpected bonus—he met the love of his life. They’re now happily married!

It turns out, she was at the bootcamp as part of her training with Apprenti, a Registered Apprenticeship program that creates alternative pathways to access diverse tech talent and helps organizations address the digital skills shortage through the time-tested model of apprenticeship. When John finished the bootcamp, she suggested he apply for the Apprenti program.   

“It was really scary to be thrown into an environment with people that were much smarter and experienced than me, but being around and working with those people is what makes the training so valuable,” he said.

John graduated from Apprenti in 2020. Since then, John and his wife have both been employed full-time at VMware. He is a software engineer, and she works on creating new products. “Working in the tech industry has definitely changed our lives for the better,” John noted. “It gave us financial independence, the ability to save for the future, and enabled us to purchase a home.”

John’s experience at Apprenti truly was life-changing. “It would have taken me years to develop the knowledge and skills that I did in just one on-the-job training,” he said. “The learning process hasn’t finished, there will always be new things to learn, but that’s one of the things that makes this career very rewarding.”   

Registered Apprenticeship has emerged in national policy conversation as a proven strategy that provides employers access to the diverse talent needed to build a sustainable and highly-skilled workforce, as well as providing underrepresented populations a pathway to economic mobility by identifying, training, and placing diverse talent in higher-paying tech careers. Apprenti makes it easy for both organizations and workers to participate, eliminating critical barriers to entry for prospective apprentices and vastly lowering hiring costs. Through Apprenti, John and his wife found a rewarding new career (and romance), and VMware gained access to a turnkey talent acquisition solution that enabled it to easily and effectively fill much-needed digital skills roles.