A friend fresh out of a 14 wk Coding Bootcamp is looking for work. 0 YOE, 10+ working in retail/customer service. No CS degree. I haven’t seen their resume, nor know volume of applications, but they mentioned that they haven’t had any calls nor interviews in a few months despite applying for several Front End, Full stack, Java, Python, and RoR positions. I wanted to suggest a resume overhaul, not peppering every tech, and focus work on some contract side projects (free or otherwise) to make their submissions more enticing. First step is to get an interview, right? Anyone here with experience hiring Bootcamp grads? Any other suggestions? Thanks, 15 YOE, 150 TC
Did their boot camp not offer any career assistance? The whole reason to go to a boot camp is to build your network and polish your portfolio/resume. Those are the first things they should work on. They should look for apprenticeships and internships. They may also want to consider some roles that are part coding and part customer facing to leverage all those years of professional experience they do have.
That was my thinking too. I’m not sure how much career assistance was offered, but I like the idea of seeking out apprenticeships and brainstorming positions outside of typical development. One idea I want to suggest is analytics/tracking to test which resumes were working (different URLs)!
Good bootcamp programs have a whole department dedicated to career assistance. They are supposed to introduce their grads to potential employers. That’s what a good chunk of the $15k tuition is for.
I would say try a combination of finding contract roles + side projects. Grind that out for a year or 2 and then with LC + networking you can break into some full time jobs at good companies
Good idea. I don’t know what people use these days, but I was planning to help him find some odd development gigs on Craigslist. 1-2 YOE will definitely make a world of difference.
Might be a good opportunity to do some open source work.
Hired a bootcamper with finance background previously, it was all kinds of bad. Couldn’t actually code in a mature code base. He really needs to prove himself with some contracting work. Employers more comfortable with contractors since they can just fire you quickly.
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No portfolio of work? Also, strange spread of job titles/interests. Do they want to do front end or back end? Fwiw, I'm a bootcamp grad, but in design. Have front end exp though.
Did you have design experience before going to a bootcamp? How was your experience applying for work?
No design exp, but knew front end prior. My bootcamp expected us to have 5 projects in our portfolios. We also had career assistance/networking/portfolio nights. I would say applying for design jobs was no harder than any other job. Your friend has the benefit of *everyone* needing coders.