For a brief stint I worked at an insurance company that had a training program for COBOL. They would hire individuals that had zero programming experience but showed an aptitude for critical / logical thinking. Over a period of 8-10 weeks they would introduce basic programming concepts, move the students into Assembly, then to COBOL.
Their reasoning was it would be easier to train new individuals and work them up, using senior staff as trainers and escalation points than to try and find existing COBOL programmers. They started the pay off quite well and were able to pull in some highly talented people. They approached it almost like an apprenticeship, only with programming as the trade.
Their reasoning was it would be easier to train new individuals and work them up, using senior staff as trainers and escalation points than to try and find existing COBOL programmers. They started the pay off quite well and were able to pull in some highly talented people. They approached it almost like an apprenticeship, only with programming as the trade.