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PAUL SOLMAN: Moreover, government job training programs reach only a couple of hundred thousand people a year. So what about those coding camps we hear so much about? Well, many of them cost money to attend, at the very least cost trainees the income they forego while training. Plus, they tend to be short-term.
ANKUR GOPAL, CEO, Interapt: The idea is great. The execution is not.
PAUL SOLMAN: In Louisville Kentucky, entrepreneur Ankur Gopal has hit on apprenticeships, lengthy programs where trainees are paid, as a way of staffing his mobile software firm, Interapt. An especially stunning success story, single mother April Hickman, raised in foster care, homeless before she applied for an Interapt apprenticeship. Of all the foster kids you have known, given the same kind of opportunity, same kind of training, what percentage of them could what you're doing now?
APRIL HICKMAN, Apprentice, Interapt: Oh, gosh, a great number, because it's problem solving. And if there's one thing that we're good at, it's problem solving, because we have had to.
PAUL SOLMAN: Alex Hughes worked in the coal industry before making the switch to software. What percentage of people in the coal industry could do jobs as sophisticated as what you're doing here?
ALEX HUGHES, Lead Software Developer, Interapt: That's 100 percent. It's a very technical industry. And so they're always having to learn and adapt.
PAUL SOLMAN: In fact, every successful apprentice I interviewed for this series claimed that between 50 and 100 percent of those in their position could do the same, given the chance. IBM human resources executive Kelli Jordan agreed.
KELLI JORDAN, Director of Career, Skills and Performance, IBM: Anybody can make that transition.
PAUL SOLMAN: But it can't be anything, right? It's got to be a lot of people who just can't do this, no?
KELLI JORDAN: I think it's possible that anybody probably could if they have got the right motivation, but I think the other side of that coin is, companies have to be more willing to think differently.
PAUL SOLMAN: Differently enough to look for talent among those without the usual educational credentials and experience. At IBM, that included rideshare driver Adquena Faine, nail technician Mariana Perez, dog trainer Jennifer Burgess, retail store manager Ray Rodriguez. They all turned underappreciated, underpaid skills into high-skill/high-paying jobs at IBM. How high-paying?
JENNIFER BURGESS, IBM: I have tripled in salary that from what I have ever made in my life.
PAUL SOLMAN: And though Jennifer burgess was trained and credentialed as a project manager, she says her skill set isn't that different from dog training.
JENNIFER BURGESS: Because it's about training the humans to be able to do what you need them to do.
PAUL SOLMAN: But is Jennifer Burgess typical or unusual?
DOUGLAS BESHAROV: The answer is we don't know how many people can do it.
PAUL SOLMAN: This is Doug Besharov.
DOUGLAS BESHAROV: The more people see other people doing these jobs, the more they will change their behavior in school, in the community. It is a dynamic process where people get expectations and decide, you know, I can be like him.
ARIELLA SPITZER: There's an inclination to focus on the success stories. But we also have to be realistic about the fact that there are a lot of cases where this is not working.
PAUL SOLMAN: On the other hand says, Ariella Spitzer:
ARIELLA SPITZER: I think that just because prior job training programs have not been as effective as we had hoped they would be doesn't mean that the next generation of job training programs can't be.
PAUL SOLMAN: And so it could be that IBM, for example, or Interapt have a model that could be replicated and could be extremely effective?
ARIELLA SPITZER: Absolutely, and I think that it's important for companies like that to be really transparent about what they're doing, so that we can make those strategies available to other people.
PAUL SOLMAN: Other people like formerly homeless single mother April Hickman.
APRIL HICKMAN: This company is amazing because I came in knowing that they saw me and they wanted to help me. Before, I didn't have the skill to get out of where we were. But I do now.
PAUL SOLMAN: And she's already gotten her first promotion. For the "PBS NewsHour," Paul Solman.
