A co-ed Pre-Apprenticeship Program (PAP) achieved 72% women.
When it stopped its outreach to women, it dropped to 17% women.
In this change we see some best practices for outreach to women.
This flier recruited classes that were 72% women.
This flier recruited classes that were 17% women.
What happened:
When recruitment strategies for the first four cohorts (classes) of this single-trade (carpentry), co-ed Pre-Apprenticeship Program (PAP) used outreach and representation strategies explicitly designed to invite women to apply, women indeed applied. Women were 72% of participants, and almost half (47%) of participants were women of color. In 2022 after a change in leadership and strategy, women were no longer explicitly invited to participate, and they stopped applying. In the next 8 PAPs cohorts, women were just 17% of participants, and women of color just 13%.
Four strategies that brought 72% women to this co-ed PAP:
- Key early agreements tradeswomen negotiated with the PAP
- That the PAP establish participation goals of at least 50% women and at least 50% people of color.
Why? There is an increased demand for women and people of color in construction as growing numbers of public and private entities that engage in construction in MA have established hiring goals for women and people of color as well as effective compliance mechanisms for meeting these goals (See PGTI’s Finishing The Job.) Having goals in this PAP would help increase the supply of women entering the industry which would help the union meet the demand by end users.
- That the PAP hire a Carpenter’s Union Instructor as the lead instructor for the program.
Why? There has been an historic distance between many community-based PAPs and the unions, which often leads to difficulty placing graduates of a PAP. Having a union apprenticeship instructor provide the training gave confidence to the union that graduates would receive high-level training that meets the needs of the apprenticeship, the union and the contractors. As a union member, the lead instructor also played an important role in helping PAP graduates find work, both immediately upon graduation and throughout their apprenticeship.
- Designing effective fliers
- In left flier above, note photos of tradeswomen and the wording “Actively seeking women” in a large font that led to 72% women.
Why? It takes an explicit invitation to women to overcome cultural barriers and communicate to women that they are wanted by the construction industry.
- Engaging current tradeswomen
- Outreach via current tradeswomen:
- PAP enlisted current tradeswomen to share the outreach flier to their circles.
- Current tradeswomen also shared fliers through tradeswomen’s public and private social media groups.
- PAP asked each graduating class to share fliers to help recruit for the next class.
- Introducing candidates and students to current tradeswomen:
- PAP created many opportunities for PAP applicants and students to engage with current tradeswomen including on assessment day, interviews and throughout the classes.
Why? “She can be what she can see.” Applicants and students got to see successful tradeswomen, showing this is a real career opportunity for women. Also, the best recruiters are women doing the work, so by having current tradeswomen share the fliers among their social media circles, the fliers carry the lived experience of the current tradeswomen.
- Assessment Strategies
- The PAP’s base assumption was that women can do carpentry if they have the basic physicality and have made the decision to learn carpentry.
- The evaluator teams who selected students for each class included women carpenters, who modeled things like how a tall or a petite person could pick up a sheet of plywood.
- In the physical assessment, applicants were graded on effort, physicality, ability to follow directions, and teamwork, not on whether they had done the thing before.
Why? Many women have had less exposure to construction work, so a test designed to see if they already knew how to do something would be exclusionary, whereas a test designed to see if they could learn to do something new would tell us who had key skills needed for apprenticeship.
Conclusion
As unfortunate as it is that this PAP stopped doing effective outreach to women, the dramatic change in the results makes a strong case that the outreach and representation strategies outlined in this paper work to increase women’s participation. We hope others who want to increase women in the construction industry can use these tips.
Target audience:
This document should be helpful for organizations who wish to ensure equal opportunity for women as they bring new workers into union construction careers, including Pre-Apprenticeship Programs (PAPs) Apprenticeship Readiness Programs (ARPs), Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAPs), Career and Technical Education (CTE) high schools, and other workforce entities.
Background: the funding and funder’s structure: MA “Career Technical Initiative”
In 2020, the MA legislature passed a budget that included roughly $16 million for the Career Technical Initiative (CTI), a state-funded system of Pre-Apprenticeship Programs for adults, housed in vocational high schools. The workforce development goal was to use the well-equipped Career Technical Education (CTE) high school vocational shops to provide pre-apprenticeship training for adult career seekers during non-high school hours. The state required the host of these PAPs to be a CTE high school, and that the PAPs be trade-specific and limited to shops for which the CTE had state Chapter 74 recognition. Statewide funding has continued since then. In 2025, 34 CTE schools participated, and the CTI program has provided 5,400 training slots to date.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research Blog Post
See IWPR Blog Post for more information about how this PAP achieved 72% women.
Policy Group on Tradeswomen’s Issues
Since 2008, the Policy Group on Tradeswomen’s Issues has used an integrated supply and demand strategy to crush barriers to women in construction. More at policygroupontradeswomen.org