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Attention code boot campers: if you literally have any other relevant experience for a software engineering job, my advice is to just leave the code camp off yo

by gfodor 9y ago

Attention code boot campers: if you literally have any other relevant experience for a software engineering job, my advice is to just leave the code camp off your resume and focus on that. And then, your experience from the code camp will come through positively in the actual technical interview process. Hiring managers are under a deluge of underqualified code boot camp candidates, who are trying to effectively get past resume screens using all sorts of tricks. The blow back from that (I'm speculating here) is that code boot camp folks are probably often being screened out early at a lot of places since its just too difficult to assess them on paper based on the extensive grooming their resumes and github profiles get by their mentors at these bootcamps. Instead, my advice would be to clearly label the work you've done at a code camp in your README files and include a link to your github. Explicitly call out on your resume projects you have done on your own, and talk about those in your cover letter. If you have literally any other projects or experience related to software engineering include those on your resume and emphasize them! But highlighting your code camp and trying to tout it as "highly selective" and "accepts only top 1% of applicants" and all that stuff may be doing more harm than good at this point. The well has been poisoned by enough under-qualified people applying that ultimately need to be screened out via an on-site interview, which is time consuming and considered a failure of the hiring process, since they have been set up to pass the resume screen and the initial phone screens. So my advice is to just leave it off, consider the knowledge a secret asset, and don't risk inadvertently damaging your own application! All it takes is for a company to be burned once or twice by misleading applications from a coding boot camp candidate to just auto-screen out all resumes from them in general. It sucks, but I found myself looking at resumes that seemed genuinely good, but as soon as the boot camp was listed there, I no longer had trust in what I was looking at. So be mindful, there may be folks out there who would have normally had you interview but didn't just because of past negative experiences with others from your code camp, or other boot camps altogether!

trowawee 9y ago
Why would I believe, as a bootcamp grad, that you're going to be able to put aside your already-admitted bias when I make it to the table for the interview, or if I make it through the hiring process? Why would I want to work with a coworker who thinks "their resume looks great, but they're a bootcamp grad, so it must be a lie"? How can I be confident that you won't throw some bullshit about me being a bootcamp grad at me when we inevitably disagree about some question? I'd rather put it on my resume and take my chances.
- gfodor 9y ago
  The issue isn't with the candidate it's with the application of the candidate. You've presented two different things as the same. The initial screening process at many companies is pretty deterministic, based on fixed inputs in the person's application, and so can somewhat be easily gamed unless it is continually refined by engineering leadership to counteract some of the dynamics I mentioned by those who basically make a living trying to get all of their students through these screens. If there is a sufficient correlation between radically underqualified candidates passing the initial screens due to their applications being (retrospectively) designed by the coding boot camp to do so, then it's reasonable to assume applications from those boot camps contain basically no real signal, and so really don't say much one way or another about the candidate's technical skills. In general, interviewing people is costly, and so with minimal signal you'll just say "no." On the other hand, if there is no coding boot camp on the resume, there's no reason to believe the person's resume, github profile, etc, has been hand crafted by domain experts around passing technical job screens. You can much more likely take it at face value. So, that is why my honest advice at this time is to leave it off, because you are probably doing more harm than good. (This doesn't mean remove the work from your github or wipe the knowledge you had from your brain, just don't put it there because it may be sending a negative signal, regardless of your own merit.) Once the person is in the door for an interview or the job their application is, generally speaking, not very relevant at that point vs their actual abilities to get the job done and work well on the team.
- chris11 9y ago
  He's saying a person with a liberal arts degree and some amateur experience looks better than some one who graduated from a boot camp. The implication is that boot camps let people appear better than they are. And you don't need to tell them you went to a boot camp. So if you get hired without mentioning it you won't deal with that bias.
  - babaganoosh89 9y ago
    Depends on the boot camp, but a boot camper would probably write better code than someone that's self taught.
samcheng 9y ago
As one of those under-deluge hiring managers, I've found that candidates have already begun hiding their bootcamp / academy education during the application process. It is still pretty obvious, though: the resumes are all the same format, as are the application channels and techniques, and experience levels. I'd recommend these individuals look toward internships, as I haven't found one qualified for a full-time job yet. Why aren't bootcamps lining up internship programs?
- NoCoastCoder 9y ago
  Because the reason people pay for them is the promise of a quick high paying job.
  - mipmap04 9y ago
    When I was an intern working on data warehouses, I made like $25/hr, which is pretty good for starting out. With overtime, you make pretty good morning for how little investment is required.
- zumu 9y ago
  The one I attended, Epicodus, did. It led to a great job at a tiny agency where I actually learned how to build production software. Unfortunately, I do not believe they are able to line up internships for all students anymore.
  - sethrin 9y ago
    They haven't been able to guarantee an internship, but they do seem to go to a fair amount of trouble to get everyone one. The last cohort all got internships in the last round, and a couple people from previous cohorts also did as well.
- jacalata 9y ago
  Some of them are - Ada's, for instance, and LaunchCode, both focus on internships as a big part of the program. But getting employers on board is a lot of work and I'd be surprised if it were possible to find enough places for all the boot camp students out there these days.

by gfodor 9y ago

trowawee 9y ago

Why would I believe, as a bootcamp grad, that you're going to be able to put aside your already-admitted bias when I make it to the table for the interview, or if I make it through the hiring process? Why would I want to work with a coworker who thinks "their resume looks great, but they're a bootcamp grad, so it must be a lie"? How can I be confident that you won't throw some bullshit about me being a bootcamp grad at me when we inevitably disagree about some question? I'd rather put it on my resume and take my chances.

gfodor 9y ago
The issue isn't with the candidate it's with the application of the candidate. You've presented two different things as the same. The initial screening process at many companies is pretty deterministic, based on fixed inputs in the person's application, and so can somewhat be easily gamed unless it is continually refined by engineering leadership to counteract some of the dynamics I mentioned by those who basically make a living trying to get all of their students through these screens. If there is a sufficient correlation between radically underqualified candidates passing the initial screens due to their applications being (retrospectively) designed by the coding boot camp to do so, then it's reasonable to assume applications from those boot camps contain basically no real signal, and so really don't say much one way or another about the candidate's technical skills. In general, interviewing people is costly, and so with minimal signal you'll just say "no." On the other hand, if there is no coding boot camp on the resume, there's no reason to believe the person's resume, github profile, etc, has been hand crafted by domain experts around passing technical job screens. You can much more likely take it at face value. So, that is why my honest advice at this time is to leave it off, because you are probably doing more harm than good. (This doesn't mean remove the work from your github or wipe the knowledge you had from your brain, just don't put it there because it may be sending a negative signal, regardless of your own merit.) Once the person is in the door for an interview or the job their application is, generally speaking, not very relevant at that point vs their actual abilities to get the job done and work well on the team.
chris11 9y ago
He's saying a person with a liberal arts degree and some amateur experience looks better than some one who graduated from a boot camp. The implication is that boot camps let people appear better than they are. And you don't need to tell them you went to a boot camp. So if you get hired without mentioning it you won't deal with that bias.
- babaganoosh89 9y ago
  Depends on the boot camp, but a boot camper would probably write better code than someone that's self taught.

samcheng 9y ago

As one of those under-deluge hiring managers, I've found that candidates have already begun hiding their bootcamp / academy education during the application process. It is still pretty obvious, though: the resumes are all the same format, as are the application channels and techniques, and experience levels. I'd recommend these individuals look toward internships, as I haven't found one qualified for a full-time job yet. Why aren't bootcamps lining up internship programs?

NoCoastCoder 9y ago
Because the reason people pay for them is the promise of a quick high paying job.
- mipmap04 9y ago
  When I was an intern working on data warehouses, I made like $25/hr, which is pretty good for starting out. With overtime, you make pretty good morning for how little investment is required.
zumu 9y ago
The one I attended, Epicodus, did. It led to a great job at a tiny agency where I actually learned how to build production software. Unfortunately, I do not believe they are able to line up internships for all students anymore.
- sethrin 9y ago
  They haven't been able to guarantee an internship, but they do seem to go to a fair amount of trouble to get everyone one. The last cohort all got internships in the last round, and a couple people from previous cohorts also did as well.
jacalata 9y ago
Some of them are - Ada's, for instance, and LaunchCode, both focus on internships as a big part of the program. But getting employers on board is a lot of work and I'd be surprised if it were possible to find enough places for all the boot camp students out there these days.