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Comment by ValG | Hacker News Reader

The partnership is centered around the job training programs, not a partnership with temp agencies. The goal is exactly the opposite of a race to the bottom, it's providing skills and real world training, something that will then be marketable at the conclusion of the program.

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It sounds like the real-world skills are writing for a content farm or stuff a half-step above mechanical turk. Do they translate into real-world jobs anyone would want?

Good question!

Software testing, online research, and high-quality writing correspond directly to marketable technology and professional skills development.

It's important to remember that these individuals often come from a low-technology background, and are training to develop foundational technology skills -- not highly-specialized skills.

I agree high-quality writing is a solid skill, but I worry whether content-farm writing is a particularly plausible inroads into that. I suppose it can help improve writing skills from completely nonexistent up to the level of being able to string words together, but I'm not sure writing articles along the lines of what you find on eHow is going to help you land a more solid writing job, like technical documentation. In the worst case, it could count as worse than no experience to mention on your CV, since that kind of writing has a poor reputation.

Hopefully I'm wrong, but I think there are a lot of entry-level jobs that are sort of dead-end and don't really develop into a skill ladder, which is something to watch out for.

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