There are over 100 Coding Bootcamps in America. How should you decide which one to go to?
There’s a huge problem with coding bootcamps.
Some coding bootcamps prepare you for the job, other coding bootcamps prepare you for months of unemployment.
Don’t Trust Anything The Coding Bootcamp Tells You
Coding bootcamps are a business and their goal is to get as many students as they can into a cohort while keeping the cost of running the program low.
Coding bootcamps have a marketing army. They built a strategy to target you in an Instagram ad and then get you to apply without checking out the competition. They’re focused on making a transaction.
You’re the customer and your job is to make sure that you’re buying the right solution for your specific problem — you’re focused on building a better life.
…but, if I can’t trust any coding bootcamp isn’t that a bad sign?
Let me tell you an old business joke.
A man dies and St. Peter tells him he can tour both heaven and hell and decide where he’d like to spend eternity. He goes to hell first, and the devil shows him a great time — there’s a golf course, hot tubs, pools and every amenity you can imagine. Then he goes to heaven — it’s exactly what you’d imagine — but compared to hell it seems pretty dull. He tells St. Peter to send him to hell. Once he’s back in hell, it’s a totally different place. All the amenities are gone and there’s just fire and misery. The man asks the devil what happened. The devil responds, “Yesterday you were a prospect, today you’re a client.”
Coding bootcamps spend a lot of money to get you in the door, but once you’re there they don’t have the same incentive anymore because there’s no more money to make off of you — they move onto the next transaction.
Follow this list of questions to know how they actually treat students and if you see these red flags in their answers run away!
When was the last time this curriculum was reviewed by engineers in the industry?
🚩 They can’t tell you that real senior engineers who don’t work at the bootcamp are reviewing the course material on a regular basis.
Follow up by asking them, “What was the last suggestion you incorporated into the curriculum?” The big red flag is if they can’t answer the question or direct you to someone who can answer the question — you want to hear that someone who hires engineers reviewed the curriculum and something specific they changed (and that the change happened in the last 6 months).
How many students are hired as web developers and full stack engineers? How does that compare with the percentage of students who are hired in other technical roles?
After you graduate from a coding bootcamp, you can be a Data Analyst, Sales Engineer, Customer Success Manager or many other roles, but you paid them to be a web developer (full stack software engineer) and you don’t need a coding bootcamp to get one of those other jobs.
🚩 They don’t participate in CIRR. CIRR is the Council on Integrity Reporting Results which prevents coding bootcamps from saying they have a higher placement rate than they do. This is especially important because internal documents showed that Lambda School had a 30% placement rate in 2020 (they report 74% on their website) and General Assembly reports a 99% placement rate, when it’s actually closer to 60% (source: Business Insider).
🚩 They don’t report the percentage of how many students work as a given title. You ideally want to see more than 80% working as web developer or software engineer.
🚩 CIRR data for 2020 is not reported — coronavirus is no excuse. They didn’t refund their students because of coronavirus, you shouldn’t let them off the hook of being transparent either — they either used their extra cash to invest more into student success or they didn’t.
How much training are the Teacher’s Assistants given?
Bootcamps usually cram 30–60 students into a cohort with 2 instructors. Everyone will be struggling and the instructors won’t have 1:1 time to sit down with everyone. They usually pay recent grads ~$10/hour to help current students. But, that’s like asking a 7 year old kid to watch over a toddler. If something bad happens, you still need an adult. But as I mentioned before, bootcamps are a business and focus on minimizing costs — you’re already in the door, it doesn’t pay to keep investing in you.
🚩 There’s 1 week or less of training for TA’s.
🚩 TA’s don’t get an advanced understanding of the curriculum.
How do you ensure that students truly master concepts in the curriculum?
🚩 They skip right into frameworks without ensuring that you understand JavaScript first (closures, higher-order functions, asynchronous JavaScript, promises, Object-Oriented Patterns).
🚩 You’re not expected to be proficient with JavaScript before live instruction starts. If you’re not intermediate with JavaScript on Day 1, where should you expect to be on Week 12? Will that level make employers want to hire you?
What’s the average cohort size?
🚩 They’re shoving more than 30 students into a cohort.
Look for a student-to-teacher ratio below 8 students for 1 instructor (TA’s not included).
Which concepts should I master before applying?
🚩 They tell you to just apply today.
This is the mother of all signs that they just wanna get you in the door. Run away.
🚩 They test for basic math and verbal skills.
Basic math and verbal skills don’t ensure a high-quality cohort.
My coding bootcamp suggested being able to solve level 5 katas on Codewars and already have built 2 simple apps (like a calculator and tic-tac-toe).
Most companies aren’t looking for junior software engineers, what systems do you have in place to get around this problem?
There are very few companies looking to hire junior engineers — most bootcampers submit 300 job applications to get hired.
Find out if the coding bootcamp helps you stand out from other junior engineers.
🚩 They don’t talk about how the projects the students make actually impress employers. Ideally, you should be working on a project for a company, build an open-source project or a developer tool. If they say students just build whatever they’re passionate about, it’s a good sign that only a small minority of projects are actually impressive to employers.
How many rounds of review do students get on their resume?
🚩 The answer is less than 2.
🚩 They don’t talk about a process for resume writing and LinkedIn profiles.
🚩 Resumes aren’t reviewed by real engineers in the industry.
What does interview prep look like?
🚩 They don’t do mock behavioral and mock technical interviews with alumni. Again, you need to practice with someone who does the job, not another student.
🚩 They don’t do whiteboard prep. You need to be strong with data structures, algorithms and system design. That’s what 99% of interviews look like today.
How many networking days can I participate in?
🚩 There should be at least 1. Ideally, they partnered with companies or a VC firm to help you get access to opportunities.
Quitting your job and paying $20,000 to join a coding bootcamp won’t guarantee that you’ll be successful. Asking these 10 questions still won’t guarantee that you’re successful.
The quality of your questions determines the quality of your outcomes.
Now… what questions will you ask yourself?
