🚨BREAKING NEWS: Course Report (bootcamp review website) acquired by Career.io - a job hunting platform and placement service.

🚨BREAKING NEWS: Course Report (bootcamp review website) acquired by Career.io - a job hunting platform and placement service. Course Report is now owned by a job search conglomerate "Career.io" ending an era of it running as an independent bootcamp review website. I'm breaking this news and have not reached out yet to Course Report or Career.io for comment on this matter. DISCLOSURE: This post is my personal opinions and does not reflect the views of my company. I have not heard of Career.io before but their services to overlap with my company (specifically "interview prep services") so I might have a conflict of interest discussing them but as of this post I have no idea who they are an first heard of them in discovering they now own Course Report. # Background Story - How I discovered this, and the decline of Course Report: # 1. Codesmith Paying for Reviews I have been watching Codesmith's reviews on Course Report occasionally for a while. I sent a case to their leadership of a review where a person claimed that Codesmith helped them change careers into tech, but their LinkedIn listed THREE YEARS OF SOFTWARE ENGINEER WORK EXPERIENCE - describing the same job as "marketing" in their review. The review is still there as far as I could tell. I then found a review from a Codesmith employee who is both on their website as an employee and actively participating in information sessions representing Codesmith during the same time that the review was written. The review was not removed by Course Report despite violating the terms of service. A Codesmith alumni then sent me a copy of an email they received from Codesmith's senior advisor and their outcomes community manager. The email offered them a free Codesmith hoodie or a $50 gift card to their online store if they completed a review on Course Report or Switch Up by a certain date. I took a look at Codesmith's reviews this year: January 2024: 2 reviews February: 0 reviews March: 2 reviews **April: 20 reviews (when people were offered gift card for reviews)** **May: 15 reviews** June: 4 reviews July: 1 review I asked Course Report for comment on this and received a generic reply about not commenting on speculation but no comment on if paying for reviews was against their terms. # 2. Aggressive Twitter Sponsored Posts I looked at Course Reports tweets this week (July 12th to July 19th): 1. Several tracked posts to General Assembly (a Course Report sponsor) 2. Springboard (a Course Report sponsor) Course Report Discount Code (TWEETED FOUR TIMES THIS WEEK!) 3. Codesmith (a Course Report sponsor) link to Course Report blog post with Codesmith (TWEETED FIVE TIMES THIS WEEK) 4. Dozens of other posts for "top bootcamps" lists, and discount codes, scholarship posts. They disclose on their website in the fine print that content on Course Report can be sponsored and promoted, but these individual tweets do not indicate these programs as partners or sponsored content. # Present and Future: # 1. Who is Career.io? Career.io acquires companies and folds them into their end to end job hunting platform. In their own [words](https://career.io/about-us#history-of-growth): "Career.io is a diversified career services business that empowers people to take control of their careers and achieve their full potential––wherever they are in their career journey." They own Resume.io, TopInterview.io, CareerMinds, ZipJob, TopCV, PremierVirtual They have 200+ employees and presence in 100+ countries. # 2. Does this Mean Anything? My personal opinion is that this probably won't impact much right now. Course Report selling is just another sign of the bootcamp apocalypse taking a tole on everyone. They stopped taking action on review integrity and cashed out to Career.io. I hope Career.io cleans things up and helps restore the integrity in the industry so Course Report can be trusted again. But overall, not a good sign for bootcamps... exhaustion is catching up with the best and people are moving on to new things.

Yeah a minor gift is fairly common and I have no problem with it IF DONE PROPERLY. 1. Only one of the people disclosed the "gift". All of them should have. 2. Not everyone appears to have gotten the email. Vast majority of the reviews during April and May mention being placed at some point in the past months to years. Thought Experiment: If I posted saying any Codesmith grad who didn't get a job, post a review on Course Report and send me a screenshot and I'll Venmo you $50. (THIS IS NOT AN OFFER - IT'S A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT) Does that sound fair and reasonable? If not, why is it ok the other way around.

I don't think so yet. There are three players right now: 1. Career Karma - pivoted to be AI customer engagement company in february, so I don't think that their judgment will change much overtime and their content is there more for SEO and to try to collect some income to the company 2. Course Report: their ethics statement hasn't changed so I don't expect the reliability to change. I think it's just similar to CIRR to understand inherent biases. If bootcamps who pay their sponsorships fail, Course Report fails. If no one wants to go to bootcamps, Course Report has no purpose. So their existence relies on bootcamps doing well. They don't make money from prospective students paying membership fees but they DO make money from referring a prospective student to a partner bootcamp and getting a large referral fee. To me, them selling is a sign that none of these revenue streams made sense anymore and instead they brand "Course Report" can be used on top of a full stack machinery (Career.io) but have them run operations for almost no additional cost. 3. Switch Up. Was sold long ago a company called Optimal which is kind of like [Career.io](http://Career.io) and while it didn't change much, it also basically died off and has broken images and super dated "news" that's almost a year old... wouldn't be surprised if Course Report follows that path.