can we call boot camps predatory?

In the past few weeks any of my comments mentioning specific bootcamps have been getting instantly downvoted. I wished everyone a happy 2024 and got like 30% downvote rate when I checked :( I strongly believe that it's in any program's interest in this market, to be transparent about who and if your program is for and why it might not work. Maybe you won't get everyone with a pulse signing up, but I think the industry would be better off if people went to the right places for the right reasons, and don't go anywhere unless it's a good, well informed, choice.

<3

This is a bit cynical but I somewhat agree that there is a "sales process" in selling and marketing yourself to companies. Many job hunt processes are like this, but rely on your work experience to anchor on and I find that bootcamp grads tend to build narratives out of hardly anything (relatively speaking to experienced candidates), so the process feels a little weirder and some people naturally are good at this to their own benefit in the job hunt. But at a meta level - the market keeps changing and people are doing what they need to to get jobs, and this is where we are at right now.

Do you think I come across as pro-bootcamp? Or you mean that just not being anti-bootcamp gets downvotes?

I stand in the "fundamental skills" camp and that you need to build genuine fundamental skills needed to be an engineer and then you need to get an entry level job to apply those skills and build experience you can't get anywhere else. So I see a bootcamp's role in this to build those fundamental skills and help align people with entry level jobs. That said, CS grads need 4 years to build those skills and even if accelerated, we're talking way more than 12 weeks to build those. So it puts bootcamps in a tough spot in this market. I think this is why Codesmith and I butt heads so much on this topic, because their CEO believes that if you have soft-hard skills like problem solving, communication, teamwork, then you can be a mid level engineer.... you don't need fundamental skills if you can learn to learn, then you can get by anywhere. Very different approach, but the market is demanding both things right now and in absence of one, they want fundamental skills first. Again, all my opinions curious if you agree.

RE: "If you want something better – then you’re going to have to make it. That’s what I’ll be doing." I know a couple of bootcamps that started for just that reason. I think one thing many people fail to realize when starting a business is that the skillset needed to run a business, manage, people, grow people's careers, etc... is completely different from that needed to make a "better bootcamp". So it's more than just the skillset to make something better, but a large set of skills that I have not seen land all in one place. I think Lambda School in my opinion WAS best marketing (almost so good everything else fell behind and caused a lot of problems). Codesmith in my opinion is like best at community building. Rithm in my opinion is best at live instruction. We see all of the building a "better bootcamp" efforts turn into program that are the best at one thing and that's exactly why I want to help people find the right program for them and what they want.

Yeah I wrote about this in my predictions post but if you are a bootcamp it's tough right now because there just aren't any entry level role pathways (similar for CS grads from non-stop tier schools as well). So the only strategy working is the aim for roles requiring experience and hope that someone reads your resume as a qualified for them (and other strategies to connect with jobs). I think Tech Elevator's model can work, where they have partnerships, specifically the ones in Cleveland, Cincinnati, etc... to get people into entry level roles. Amazon's Technical Academy worked well for BloomTech, they published 2022 outcomes and that program was an anomaly that pulled up all their averages. Haven't heard anything about this for a while though. Codesmith is going to launch Future Code for the city of NY in the spring and it's for people making under 50K who live in NYC and have little to no programming experience. Codesmith was made for people who are "already hireable as junior engineers" so this will be interesting to see if these people can find entry level jobs. I'm going to be watching those grads for exaggerations because the program requires them to have little to no experience and I'm very curious how they will get placed with 6 months of Codesmith on their resume.... presumably NYC won't be happy if people all exaggerate their resumes so it puts Codesmith in an interesting spot. People won't be able to claim anything more than 6 months of experience, no stretching the truth of their past jobs, no exaggerating OSPs, very curious to see what Codemsith does for this. If they strongly believe there isn't an exaggeration problem, they are in for a huge wake up call with the NYC government, if they are aware of this and come up with new strategies that work for a large group of people that has no relevant experience at all, then maybe they will unlock their ability to take people earlier on in their journeys.