u/metalreflectslime wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
For those of you who attended a paid coding bootcamp, but you failed to find a paid SWE job after 1 year of graduating from said paid coding bootcamp, and you did not leave your coding bootcamp a negative review on Yelp, Course Report, etc., why did you not leave your coding boot
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited
I was talking to someone about this today, they asked me the same question. I've had dozens of people share their stories with me and say it's so I can keep being 'tough on the bootcamps'.
I don't ask them why they don't post themselves nor do I suggest people do because that's up to them, so I don't really know exactly why.
BUT these are some themes that have come up in general that could be related:
\- people fear retaliation (not being given the best support if found out), being DOXXED (and just called out and they don't want to deal)
\- people feel bad they didn't get a job, but others did and they blame themselves
\- people feel really loved the team/instructors and don't want them blamed for negative feedback
\- people have given feedback internally that went unaddressed so they don't want to repeat it again publicly and DOX themselves.
\- people want refunds and don't want to ruffle feathers
\- people have NDAs and nervous about talking publicly
\- people have such specific stories that are unique and one off to them, but in aggregate show a pattern that the person can't speak to
FINALLY COURSE REPORT:
\- Course Report makes money promoting bootcamps and is a garbage source of information
\- Just look at the "best AI course" list as an example. At least one program listed doesn't even meet their own criteria for inclusion but was conveniently an unlabelled paid sponsor. And the program had zero reviews on their own site. But it's the "best"!!
\- I have reported instructors posting reviews without disclosing, and they said it was fine.
\- I reported people saying they had no prior experience and landed a life changing job, but the attached LinkedIn says 4 years of experience, and they said it was fine.
\- They give "best bootcamps" awards to programs that had no reviews in 8 months+.
\- Honestly the people who run it seem nice, it's just a perpetuation of this bootcamp operators who have no clue what the heck they are doing who hit product market fit and it went to their heads. Same with Course Report. No journalistic standards, almost all their "articles" are paid sponsors. Like that's FINE but it's not disclosed clearly. Go to Forbes Advisor, which is an SEO click farming operation, and it's abundantly clear what is paid and not.