COMPETE

In today’s tech-driven economy, it’s difficult for lower-income Americans to achieve economic mobility. Good-paying jobs typically require a 4-year degree – bachelor’s degrees deliver median income 60% higher than associates degrees, 76% higher than high school diplomas.

These jobs are typically out of reach for students who can’t afford the cost or time out of the work force to attain the 4-year degree required for the vast majority of tech jobs (Indeed). Lower-income, rural, Black and Hispanic Americans are significantly underrepresented at 4-year colleges (BLS, Community College Research Center, Statista), and as a result underrepresented in tech.

At the same time, U.S. companies face a shortage of qualified tech candidates. The tech workforce is projected to grow 2 times faster than the overall workforce, and over 350,000 tech workers retire annually (BLS, Lightspeed). Yet the US graduates only 55,000 with tech-related bachelor’s degrees annually (National Science Board).

Community colleges offer the possibility of being a scalable talent engine for tech jobs and deliver on the promise of economic mobility. Unfortunately, companies’ recruiting behavior and STEMatch’s research show that community college graduates lack the key work skills, professional capital, and work experience necessary to be hired for entry-level tech jobs.

In 2019, STEMatch gathered tech executives from IBM, Mimecast, State Street Bank, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, and other firms to evaluate if community college graduates could succeed in entry-level tech roles. After reviewing MassBay Community College’s cybersecurity curriculum, interviewing the students and assessing the students across 100 work skills, the team concluded that while their technical skills were strong, students lacked key work skills, professional capital, and work experience.

STEMatch has taken these learnings and created the COMPETE program to provide community college students in cybersecurity, software development, IT support and electrical engineering/electronics with these missing pieces. In addition to their coursework, COMPETE students receive 10 hours of targeted work skills training, professional capital-focused mentoring from company partner staff, paid internship opportunities with company partners, and wraparound services. All of this is designed to get these students what they need to successfully compete with 4-year graduates for full-time, entry-level positions.

Cohort students are run through STEMatch’s proprietary, AI-driven work skills assessment prior to starting the program and after the internship phase, and company partners interview students at the end of the program and assess their “hire-ability”. Company partners have assessed 88% of the students hire-able, after the program completion.

STEMatch COMPETE supports underemployed and unemployed students in technical certification and associate degree programs at community colleges. These students typically earn less than 60% of the regional median household income. Many are people of color, immigrants, and first-generation college students, and range in age from 20 to 55. Most work while attending school, often full-time.

These students lack exposure to the professional capital to help them secure and succeed in tech careers, and cannot afford the time out of the workforce or cost of a four-year degree. Without family or friends in tech, they lack exposure to and connections in tech organizations. Unlike four-year college students, they also lack time to develop key work skills such as communication, teamwork, and critical thinking, and have very limited access to internships, which are typically reserved for juniors and seniors at four-year schools – and critical for entry-level job seekers.

COMPETE addresses these challenges by providing professional capital through mentoring, skills training, and access to opportunities. STEMatch partners with companies to offer paid technology internships to COMPETE students, ensuring each participant receives at least two job interviews.

Perhaps it is best for students to describe how COMPETE has affected their lives: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QM4KOggV-dXase10zCl6RgwJ7Ru1MgEh/view?usp=sharing [video]

STEMatch COMPETE is an innovative partnership connecting students, community colleges, and businesses to improve economic mobility for underserved communities while boosting the competitiveness of American companies. The STEMatch team’s experience across these communities informs the program design for effective collaboration.

STEMatch Team Lead’s (Chris Zannetos) experience as a founder/CEO of technology companies, ensures COMPETE aligns with business needs – enabling adoption without altering business processes, and providing concrete value to overcome barriers to hiring from “non-traditional” channels. His insights into technical talent demand and business colleague input ensure that community college students gain the specific experience and skills that businesses believe they need to be hired and succeed.

Chris has spent his life surrounded by educators – with a college professor, two college administrators, and three public school teachers among his immediate family. He's worked with educators and business executives to build strategic plans as the chair of the Massachusetts High Tech Council’s Education Working Group. And as STEMatch’s founder, he’s worked with community college Presidents, Deans and Faculty to test, revise, and implement the COMPETE program. The result is a program that has minimal impact on college operations for easy adoption, yet still provides industry input for longer-tailed curriculum improvement.

The team has worked with 100+ community college students through COMPETE’s pilot and cohorts, and more than 1,200 middle school students and teachers from low-income communities through STEMatch’s Career Day Program. COMPETE’s Executive Director was responsible for early career placement and coaching with Year Up and COMPETE’s program coordinator has spent 11 years leading Citizen Schools operations. These experiences inform COMPETE’s wraparound services design, work skills seminars, and professional mentoring focused on career development rather than technical skills.

The program gathers feedback from all involved communities via frequent surveys and program reviews, to drive continuous improvement of the program.

STEMatch has selected the “Growth” stage, having successfully delivered multiple cohorts in five Massachusetts regions, indirectly supporting partner operations in the Truist footprint. The revenue model supports ongoing operations and expansion after initial funding – with companies paying $5-10,000+ to participate and gain access to interns.

STEMatch is currently executing a Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ grant to expand the program across the state. A Truist Inspire grant will allow STEMatch to start operations directly supporting the Truist footprint in Georgia, where the Georgia Technical Community College System and companies like Aflac and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) have committed to partnering.

Including the 2024-25 Cohort, STEMatch has served 106 students studying cybersecurity, software development, electrical engineering/electronics and IT support – in 3 cohorts with a 95%+ completion rate, working with 6 community colleges in 5 communities, and partnering with 18 companies across industries as varied as software, finance, lasers and life sciences. More company partners will be added in 2025 in support of the current cohort. Companies have reported an 88% success (“hire-ability”) rate for students after the internship. Companies have continued to employ some COMPETE students part- and full-time after the conclusion of the internship – even though they hadn't yet graduated.

https://www.stematch.org/compete-landing

Current solutions to the challenge providing opportunities for low-income Americans to secure good-paying jobs often struggle to scale and rely on business altruism. STEMatch’s COMPETE program is unique in offering a clear return on investment for both businesses and educators, eliminating the need for altruism while ensuring strong demand from all parties, and by leveraging existing structures to be able to scale to help tens of thousands secure high-paying tech jobs each year.

For businesses, COMPETE provides access to a diverse, well-trained talent pool, helping fill chronically unfilled positions and meet diversity goals. It also streamlines recruiting efforts. Community colleges benefit from increased internship rates (which significantly improve graduation and job placement outcomes) and gain new industry partnerships. Students benefit from mentoring, training, internships, and tailored career development through STEMatch’s AI-driven skills assessment, making them more competitive in the job market.

Unlike many programs, COMPETE does not recreate foundational training but supplements it by working with existing, strong programs at community colleges, which educate 1 million STEM students annually. COMPETE minimizes operational burdens for both colleges and businesses for easy adoption. Mentoring requires only 1-2 hours per month, and the program integrates seamlessly with existing internship, co-op, or apprenticeship operations. For colleges, there is no need for curriculum changes.

Demonstrating the hire-ability of community college students, will encourage companies to include these colleges in their standard recruiting operations, potentially leading to deeper partnerships. Community colleges are provided an opportunity to redefine success, emphasizing not just matriculation to a four-year college but also securing employment after graduation.

If scaled, COMPETE has the potential to transform the tech talent market, creating a sustainable pipeline for underserved communities and helping the U.S. better compete globally by growing its engineering talent base and realizing the "New Collar Jobs" vision championed by companies like IBM.

Our overarching objective is to make economic mobility and financial security accessible to people who can’t afford the cost and time out of the workforce for a 4-year degree, by turning America’s community colleges into the talent engine for the 21st century, tech-driven economy.

Impact goals

Impact Goal #1: All Americans have the opportunity to gain employment in high-paying, entry-level tech jobs, without having to earn a 4-year degree

# of program participants/% of cohort achieving 30+ days of unsubsidized employment in a tech job

#/% of students completing program

#/% of students determined by company partners to be hire-able at program completion

% of students whose work skills assessment score is within 20% of professionals in their discipline

# of community colleges participating

# of STEM disciplines supported by the program

Impact Goal #2: Community colleges become part of companies’ standard talent pipelines

# of companies partnering with the program

#/% of cohort participants retained part- or full-time at the conclusion of the internship period

% of company partners continuing to partner year-to-year

The core COMPETE Team - 1 Full-time, 2 part-time staff:

Chris Zannetos – Team Lead, 95% FTE: overall program design, executive oversight, building company partnerships

Anita Alden – Program Director, 80% FTE: overall management and responsibility for program operations and success

Katie Rothschild – Program Coordinator, 100% FTE: executing program operations and communications/support of students and partners

This team is supplemented by several dozen part-time volunteers. Company partners provide mentors, interviewers, and internship managers. Ten technology executives and subject matter experts help design and deliver skills seminars. There are several technology executives and educators on STEMatch’s board and advisory boards.

Chris Zannetos (Team Lead) began exploring community college student fit for tech roles typically reserved for 4-year graduates in 2017. With a $62,000 grant, he and Anita Alden (Program Director) led the COMPETE Pilot to determine the additional training and experience needed to convince companies to remove their “4-year degree” hiring requirement. 

Following a COVID hiatus, Chris and Anita continued as part-time volunteers for the 2023 and 2024 cohorts. They are now nearly full-time on the program, hiring a full-time coordinator in November 2024. Team: Chris Zannetos – 8 years, Anita Alden – 7 years, Katie Rothschild – <1 year.

The volunteers who have built this program have come from the Team Leader’s tech industry network – not surprisingly the team mirrors the lack of diversity in technology that this program aims to change. The core team itself only consists of 3 members, two of whom are women, none are minorities.

As the organization grows, it expects its policy of ensuring that minority-serving institutions and programs (such as community colleges and organizations such as The Partnership in Boston) are included in all staff searches will yield a diversity that strengthens the organization and its programs.

STEMatch strongly encourages its company partners to provide a diverse set of mentors and internship managers, which larger organizations have been able to deliver.

STEMatch’s organizational values reviewed with new hires on their first morning, lived in its operations, and assessed annually are targeted to make opportunity accessible to all, and provide a welcoming and inclusive environment for personal and professional growth.

These values are:

Intellectual Honesty. We’re direct, respectful, and up front – and we don’t just accept conventional wisdom. Great ideas can come from anyone.  We evaluate ideas openly and test them rigorously.

Constructive Confrontation. Challenges should be surfaced quickly and confronted directly. We roll up our sleeves to attack challenges, leaving our egos outside of the room to find a solution.

Accountability. We are accountable to ourselves, and everyone we interact with. We align our personal goals with the team’s goals – and with each other’s success.

Relentless Improvement. We embrace creativity and innovation. We’re responsible to our teammates to deliver what we commit – and find ways to do better.

Enjoy the Journey. Creating something new is hard enough…if you don’t have fun doing it, it’s just not worth it. We celebrate our differences, our shared experience, and our joint successes.

STEMatch COMPETE is a collaboration between community colleges, businesses, and (at times) government, aimed at expanding the tech talent pool to fill high-demand, low-supply jobs and provide low-income Americans opportunities for financial security through tech employment. The program employs an innovative business model that benefits all stakeholders.

The primary beneficiaries are low-income community college students, who receive job placement assistance (resume review, interview prep) from tech professionals, additional skills training in areas that businesses prioritize, professional capital mentoring, and access to hiring companies and interviews. This helps students build the skills and experience to convince companies they can succeed without a four-year degree.

Community college partners also benefit, as COMPETE provides supplemental training in key areas that enhance students' employability and expands their ability to secure critical internships, an opportunity that only 10-20% of students typically access before graduation.

Businesses benefit by gaining access to a pipeline of students trained for high-demand jobs, which they can hire even before graduation. COMPETE focuses on academic areas with significant supply-demand mismatches. Companies use internships to complete valuable tasks and gain visibility to early career talent. Since many community college students work full-time while studying, companies can hire immediately, reducing their wait time. Additionally, the diversity of the cohorts help businesses hire to meet internal diversity goals and satisfy employees’ desire to contribute positively to society. STEMatch monetizes this value through service fees paid by companies.

Government benefits from programs like COMPETE, especially as state governments offer low-cost or free community college. These programs help low-income residents secure jobs that pay above the median state salary, and boost employment, the state economy, and tax revenue. STEMatch also monetizes this value through workforce development grants.

While STEMatch may bring in sustained grants to continue to help fund operations, our strategy is to leverage revenue from service fees paid by company partners to fund on-going operations once we reach start up, build infrastructure and attain critical mass in a region (projected at approximately 50 business partners). We will seek additional grant funding primarily to expand the program to new geographies.

STEMatch has made great progress in implementing this strategy for COMPETE over the past two years. STEMatch introduced the company service fee of $4,000 to participate in the program for its 2nd cohort (2023) – earning $18,500 in revenue.

In 2024, STEMatch received a $1,245,183 workforce development grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to build infrastructure and scale statewide in 2025-2026. During this period, company partners are expected to contribute over $2 million in fees and employee time. STEMatch has raised the service fee to $5,000 ($1,500 for each additional intern) for the 2025 cohort. With 5 months remaining to sign up partners for 2025, STEMatch has earned $29,000 in fees, with 19 companies in the pipeline, potentially generating an additional $123,500.

The STEMatch model engages regional industry associations to introduce STEMatch to their member companies and promote the COMPETE program, helping members fill hard-to-fill positions and build diversity. Webinars are scheduled for January with the Massachusetts High Tech Council (95 companies) and the New England Council (300+ companies). STEMatch has commitments from the Advanced Cyber Security Center and Glasswing Ventures to host webinars, with discussions ongoing with other associations.

STEMatch plans to implement this model in other regions as it expands the program (and has already engaged in discussions with industry associations, companies, and community colleges in other states).

Partially-funded by a workforce development grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, STEMatch is currently expanding COMPETE across the state. For the 2024/25 Cohort, STEMatch doubled the number of colleges supported (to 6), projects partnering with 15-20 companies, and expanded to serve 40+ students preparing for cybersecurity, software development, electrical engineering, and IT support jobs. The STEMatch team is building repeatable processes and automating its systems to expand to support 90-110 students in 2026, with an increase in both colleges, communities, and companies supported – and a planned expansion to support entry-level biotech jobs.

By the end of 2025, STEMatch will have operations in place that can be effectively leveraged to serve communities in additional states – and a Truist Inspire Grant would provide the startup capital for that effort. The grant would enable STEMatch move from indirectly supporting the Truist footprint, to directly supporting it in Georgia where STEMatch has signed up foundational partners. Companies such as Aflac and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), The National Technology Security Coalition, Albany Technical College, and the Technical College System of Georgia have committed to partnering with STEMatch in Georgia, should it gain funding.

In addition, Chris Sullivan, Managing Partner of strategic technology consultancy VoSec, and a resident of greater-Atlanta, has agreed to provide executive support on the ground, in Georgia.

STEMatch has the pieces in place to launch COMPETE to bring expanded opportunity for economic mobility to underserved communities in Georgia, a grant from the Truist Foundation can help make that a reality.