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Comment by c3534l | Hacker News Reader

Pretty much every company I've worked with not just doesn't care about bootcamps, but actively avoids them. They prefer self-taught over scammed-into-crash-course. In particular, they don't trust that any github projects were completed independently.

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In my experience they're often not that favorable to self-taught developers either. Even after I had years of experience under my belt I'd have people telling me to take a big demotion to work at their small company, or acting like they were amazed I solved a simple coding problem for them. Not insurmountable but a real phenomenon.

In particular, they don't trust that any github projects were completed independently.

Fortunately it's very easy to suss this out by asking a focused question or two about the code.

I've never even considered this (quote). All of my stuff is random projects I've made. But it's all me who made commits. Interesting.

It's so weird to be reviewing resumes for a entry-level position and you see 3-4 with the same exact project.. I do look though their github and mentioned projects pretty deeply too to find any standouts which they have been once or twice but it's rare

Seems like it'd be pretty easy to ask them about the project and at least if they understand it/have thoughts on why they did what they did? But yeah seems like anyone could just copy a repo and post it as their own. Hmmm.

I have walked through github code that a candidate has posted on their resume, asking about choices made as we went, potential improvements, etc. and usually the answers were some version of "the instructor said we should do it that way."

I’ve done the same and interviewed people whose resume said “interviewed customer to solicit project requirements; implemented them on-time and to-spec; iterated to improve based on customer feedback” only to have the candidate reveal that these were entirely mocks and made up customers and requirements. That, coupled with the horrific performance of the first two classes of grads from the program had us strike that program from our sourcing.

I've never hired anyone from a boot camp, but I work with a community college that offers a 16 months program and the juniors out of it have been great. a 8-10 week boot camp feels too much like "cramming for the big exam" to me.

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