Ask HN: Would you pay $3,500 for an Interview Bootcamp? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Would you pay $3,500 for an Interview Bootcamp?

13 pointsstreakerbee16 comments

In 3 months you are guaranteed placement into top 30 companies or you get money back. (Google, Facebook, Quora, Palantir, etc)

The program lasts for 12 weeks. You need 2 hours per day commitment, everyday.

Any takers?

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Why not give it away? People come for the bootcamp and after the 12 weeks you represent them during their job search. The companies will pay you $5-15k, depending on the candidate, as a referral fee. No cost to the participants.

>The companies will pay you $5-15k, depending on the candidate, as a referral fee.

I have tried, and from what I've seen, it is quite difficult to get that sort of a relationship with a company. If you have a recruiting agency that has that sort of relationship with a big company? You can sell your recruiting agency for a lot of money.

If you don't have a relationship with the company doing the hiring, you have to go through recruiters who do, and you will get $0-$2500 per referral. I've placed a lot of people at this level. I've gotten $2500 once. The rest of the time? I get a "thank you" (and the person I placed, often, feels they owe me a favor.)

12 * 7 * 2 = 168 total hours of commitment for a program I know nothing about, except that if you ask me to do something I believe is a waste of time I have to burn five figures in billable hours to ride it out and get the refund or sacrifice the $3,500.

I highly recommend you provide details of what precisely you are selling -- you've raised the stakes for all customers, so pitch me that I'll have more success with you than on my own.

>> you ask me to do something I believe is a waste of time

You can see the proof for yourself when you burn through the following two books within the three months. a) http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Programming-Interviews-Inside... b) http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-...

You need to spend 4hrs+ on weekends though. You will get to talk to candidates already working in the top companies and will be working in a group of 20+ highly motivated and intelligent peers.

The work required for passing programming interviews is rote practice of solving problems for which you cannot immediately think of a solution.

There's already hundreds of resources available to do this. Top-coder, practice-it, project euler, coding interview books, etc. etc.

Teaching negotiation and soft skills are probably more valuable for the general programming population.

If I were looking for a job, then yes, I would. A signing bonus would easily cover the 3.5k.

But why not work with the companies directly as a recruiting agency? Or work with already existing recruiting agencies to train their recruits? There is a lot of money to be made in the recruiting business, you definitely could make much more than 3.5k per hire.

Interesting idea, but I think it will be difficult for you to find people who can actually land jobs at those companies (and need you to help them do it).

I though of covering interview questions on my site http://www.learneroo.com , but I decided for now to focus on general learning (though there's a lot that's relevant for interviews too).

We are betting on the idea that a reasonably smart person would surprise themselves on how far they can get ahead if they can diligently work in a consistent manner. 2 hours per day may not seem much but over the course of 3 months it is pretty effective in hacking the interview process.

We will actually call/text the candidate before and after study period is over to ensure focus. Kind of like having a personal trainer for interviews.

Interesting idea. Would there be any sort of pre-requisites? I could see something like this being pretty successful at private universities (where parents sometimes have more money than their kids have ambition/drive/talent). It would resonate with the same folks who pay big bucks for SAT and ACT prep classes

The only pre-requisite is that the candidate should be reasonably intelligent. Someone who is already working in a big company/school and is putting off preparation for the interviews is ideal.

I'd commit. However an easier model to attract more people is percentage of income (annually or monthly).

I seen people work with headhunters before, giving up 1 months salary as the commission to land a job they want and in the end it seems like a win/win situation. Both people are happy.

I've seen companies offer similar deals in Denmark. It can't possibly be a new concept in the US, can it?

Most often they'll ask for 50%-100% of the first paycheck (hopefully after tax, or else nobody can pay that in Denmark!)

If you'd take the $3500 fee after I have the job, I think anyone would do it.

I'd even go so far as to say I'd be willing to give you guys 40-50% of my pay for 3 months.

Sign me up. I'll commit 6-8 hours, how to contact you?

Yes definitely

guaranteed? right...

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