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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When 2020 brought layoffs and a global pandemic, Isaac Medearis took it as a sign to follow his passion for a tech job.

“I really was looking for a career,” Madearis said, who gets married in October. “Something I could work remotely, if need be.”

A string of warehouse and security jobs just weren’t cutting it for him anymore. An internet search led him to the Full Employment Council‘s series of training programs, getting people ready to work prepared with the qualifications, certifications, and skills they need.

“It will give me the confidence and the hope that I can provide for my future family,” Madearis said.

Full Employment Council has worked in the past to get students paid internships while they get work experience. But after working with those students, they realized there were other needs.

“As we look at jobs for young people, we look at jobs for the family,” said Full Employment Council President and CEO Clyde McQueen. “Increasingly, as we’re looking at companies, they’re talking about, ‘We need some interns, but we also need some adults.”

“Some people, it’s a little bit late, but it’s never too late for anybody,” said SnapIT Solutions’ Founder, President, and CEO Neelima Parasker.

SnapIT Solutions trains willing adults like Madearis through the Full Employment Council’s program to teach them what they need to know to be successful at the end of the process. Often that training leads to the start of a more stable career.

“I have never let any candidate go,” Parasker said. “We convert them after a couple months of apprenticeship opportunity.”

That’s the kind of staying power and stability that McQueen is hoping to create.

“We want people to stay on the job,” McQueen said. “That’s our evaluation: are they there one year later.”

Even when competitors hire away one of her trainees, Parasker says that just proves that her strategy to find and create great employees is working.

“That proves that without a four-year computer sciences degree, without at least four years of experience in IT, they could pass through an interview and get close to a $100,000 job,” said Parasker. “That is a complement.”

Madearis still has about a year of training left to do, at which point the hope is that he can find a full-time position at SnapIT, where Parasker says the expectation is that former trainees will one day become mentors.

“I was given an opportunity, I wanted to be able to give back too,” Madearis said.