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In just a few short weeks, the latest class of DrupalEasy career training students will complete their course work and will be ready for an opportunity to prove themselves through internships, entry- or junior-level Drupal development positions! If your organization is looking to build its talent pipeline, this is your opportunity to bring on a highly-trained individual with the passion and desire for building Drupal sites. We’ve set up a program to match graduate skills with potential employer needs with our Work Experience (WE) Drupal program, and it is once again open for new host applicants. WE Drupal hosts are under no obligation by applying - we're just looking for some information on what type of person you're looking for (developer, site-builder, front-end, QA, PM, etc…) and an idea of the types of projects you have in mind for the graduate. We'll share all of the student profiles with you, and share your information with our students.

There are a lot of ways to train people to become Drupal site-builders, developers, and themers: books, blog posts, screencasts, 1-day trainings, and mentors - just to name a few. Drupal Career Online is different; we provide more than just one learning vector into our students brains. Our live, online, Drupal training program provides an expert instructor, professional tried-and-true curriculum, a full library of screencasts supporting the curriculum, and access to dedicated community mentors. Furthermore, this isn't bootcamp-style training; Drupal Career Online is a sanely-paced 12-week program that meets just 3 times per week. The goal of the Drupal Career Online program is simple: to create talented, well-rounded, community-minded Drupal site-builders, developers, and themers with a real-world knowledge of Drupal and the various satellite technologies that Drupal professionals use every day. Our next session starts on March 24.

Having just completed presenting the Drupal career training portion of AcquiaU, we are anticipating great experiences for all ten students as they begin their eight weeks of rotations within three different business groups within Acquia. The past two months have been a whirlwind of teaching, learning and team building, which provided great insight into a forward-thinking approach to building Drupal talent, made possible by the commitment of Acquia. We are pleased to have contributed to the new AcquiaU with the customization of our Drupal Career Online curriculum. I’d like to share some great lessons learned, as well as introduce the ten people who were lucky enough (luck favors the prepared) to be selected for this amazing program.

Twelve weeks after it began, the first online class of Drupal Career Online (DCO) graduated yesterday, launching six new Drupalists on their way to a new career. With this class, DrupalEasy has now graduated 71 participants from Drupal Career online and in-person programs. Our graduates were taught the fundamentals of Drupal site-building, Git, introductions to module and theme development, site maintenance, distributions, and much more. Along they way, students were required to use the same communication tools as the rest of the community (including IRC), were provided with a community mentor, and were encouraged (pestered?!) to get involved in their local communities.

The fifth class of our Drupal career training program is just about at the halfway mark, and our students are eager to put their new skills to work. The six Drupal Career Online students will be ready for junior-developer-level work in mid-November, and we're looking for forward-thinking organizations willing to help our graduates on the next leg of their Drupal career journey. As we've done for the past five classes, (we've had more than 60 graduates so far) we're looking to make introductions between our upcoming graduates and organizations looking for people with Drupal site-building and development skills. Our Work Experience Drupal (WE Drupal) program is designed to provide students with valuble experience in internship-type settings. WE Drupal host companies are asked to make a 6-10 week commitment to one or more of our students, provide them with guidance, mentoring, and the professional experience that is so difficult to come by for new Drupal site builders and developers. In return, you get the efforts of a well-prepared, super-eager Drupal novice to help you lighten the task-load for your staff.

What do you get when you combine a state-of-the-art open source content management system with a seemingly endless need for developers, an instructor passionate about developing Drupal talent with solid fundamentals and best practices (yours truly), six eager, geographically diverse students (pictured above - more on them in future blog posts), and a modern online classroom environment (the topic of this post)? If the content management system is Drupal, then the only answer is the online version of the Drupal Career Starter Program: Drupal Career Online. This week marks the start of the first session of Drupal Career Online, an immersive 12-week online training program designed to take people passionate about technology and turn them into Drupal professionals. The curriculum is the result of continuous development and improvement over the past three years, and now features a dedicated web site, PDF handouts and reference documents for every lesson, weekly self-assessment quizzes, screencasts covering important concepts and a healthy dose of Drupal community involvement.

With four sessions graduating more than 60 People over the past four years, there's no doubt that the Drupal Career Starter Program can bring aspiring developers from zero to hero in just a matter of a few months. Imagine what it can do for you, or your people, who are already developers, but need to be trained up in Drupal. We have, and are making it highly accessible in a live, online format designed to fit into working schedules. The upcoming Drupal Career Online training program kicks off in just about a month, and your organization now has the ability to choose the developer(s) that match well to your team and leverage our unique, holistic training to turn them into a solid member of your Drupal development team.

Right now, there are nine, highly motivated people on the East Coast of Florida who are burning the midnight oil... focusing evenings on classes and labs, and days on projects and resources to master the Drupal skills that build new careers and make them valuable members of the Drupal Community. They are the select few of the 2014 Drupal Career Starter Program, and in less than two months, most will be ready for work experience as interns.

Most Drupal shops always seem to have a few pet projects on the to-do list that are perpetually 2-3 months off - those pesky bill-paying client projects always seem to get in the way. If only there was some way to throw some person-hours at them as a way of gaining some momentum and making some progress. It's actually not that difficult to find the right developer (if you know where to look), the payoff could be great (especially if it can be an additional revenue stream for your organization), and it could help max out your karma score. tl;dr: We're getting ready to graduate 18 such developers - contact me if you'd like to see if one of them is a good fit for your organization. Bringing on a new Drupal developer who is hungry for experience could be the perfect solution since many of the posted job openings for Drupal talent are for (seemingly) everything but junior developers.