The customized AI agent, named Celeste, aims to make the recruiting process interactive and easier for employers, said Walton Robinson, the executive director of the Hamilton County-Chattanooga Apprenticeship Hub.
The hub wants the AI to be available to potential apprentices to help them identify what job they want to do and what skills they have already that can transfer to a new career path, he said.
The goal, Robinson said, is to allow prospective employees to describe their experience beyond what is on a resume because many people have transferable skills that they don't realize are applicable to a different career.
Every apprentice is going to have to know about AI regardless of where they are because it's going to start to impact every single career, and not just in IT," he said in an interview. "It's going to be applicable in finance, health care, every industry, and so it has the added benefit of giving them the opportunity to interact with a live AI agent in a real world setting."
Over the past several years, the Chattanooga area has worked to expand its apprenticeship offerings. In 2022, Chattanooga was selected as one of five communities in the nation to serve as an apprentice innovation district. Since then, more than 50 registered apprenticeship programs have been created with local employers.
A registered apprenticeship is a state or nationally approved career pathway by which employers can develop and prepare their future workforce through on-the-job, paid training and education.
BuildWithin — an apprenticeship platform that serves as the technology provider for the hub — created the AI agent because it found there needed to be another way to find skills and people beyond having them take an aptitude test. The product is tailored to local needs and was designed specifically to avoid bias, Robinson said.
Every apprentice that the hub brings to an employer will be interviewed by its staff, he said. The AI adds another layer to hone in on people's skills.
The U.S. Department of Labor has approved an AI apprenticeship program, which Robinson said the Chattanooga hub is looking for an employer to start.
Apprenticeships provide opportunities for people at a variety of career stages. Locally, employer partners have selected apprentices looking to start or change careers, as well as to boost training for existing staff in what's known as upskilling.
Tyler High spent around three years working in the business department at Unum, a Chattanooga -based insurer. He knew he wanted to work in tech, which led him to complete a boot camp where he got a certification in cybersecurity.
As he was looking for a job, he came across a software development apprenticeship at Unum. Since March, he's been working as an apprentice and loving it, he said.
"This is probably the ideal way to learn a new job because it's very incremental," he said in an interview. "You learn a little bit, you apply it. You learn a little bit more, you apply it, and so you solidify all of that theory that you would normally just be holding on to until you finished your degree."
High is fully integrated into a development team, and he said his background from the policy and business side of the company has given him a different perspective. The learning has become natural, he said, and he's learned more in the past two months than he would have in a formal setting.
The apprenticeships formed in partnership with the hub are in both more traditional, blue collar fields and what Robinson called "new collar" industries that are predicted to be in high demand over the next decade.
"We want to help create the ecosystem that people can learn and get the jobs that are going to be around and have high earning potential," he said.
For instance, some of the newest local partners that will offer apprenticeship programs are CARTA, which will provide upskilling opportunities to its employees, and Girls Inc., Northside Neighborhood House and Centenary United Methodist Church, which will all have youth activity coordinator apprentices, Robinson said. Southern Champion Tray, a Chattanooga -based manufacturer of paperboard items for the bakery and food service industry, will offer two programs — offset print apprentice and gluer apprentice.
Tyrin Breaux started an apprenticeship with the city of Chattanooga's information technology department Friday. He's looking forward to being hands-on and learning from others in the field, he said.
"When you train them from scratch, you get the type of candidate that you want," he said in an interview, "and then you also help them launch their career into bigger things."
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