A coding bootcamp isn’t just about learning technical skills. It’s a well-rounded experience that‘s also about learning to be a member of a development team, working with career services professionals to get job-ready, and building a community that lasts beyond graduation.
Our coding bootcamp graduates are prepared for jobs in any sector. A big reason why they have success landing jobs is because of the direct support they’re provided by our Career Services and Alumni teams during and after the bootcamp.
In this post, read about everything our students and graduates have access to, including career workshops, 1:1 coaching, alumni resources, and more – all of which combine with our curriculum to prepare graduates for fulfilling careers in an expanding software engineering industry.
Career services during the coding bootcamp
We don’t wait until the end of the program to focus on what it takes to launch a new career in software engineering. As you move through the bootcamp, our Career Services team provides workshops and lectures, complete with assignments that help you set and meet goals related to building your resume, networking, salary negotiations, and preparing for interviews, among other topics.
Software engineering interviews are different from job interviews in other industries. They require you to both show and tell – to talk about yourself and your goals, but also to show that you’re capable of doing the job through coding challenges and live technical interviews. This takes forethought and practice, and we integrate it into the overall bootcamp experience.
During the final week of your coding bootcamp (what we call Career Week), students start to meet 1:1 with their Career Services Manager (CSM), who they’ll work with closely throughout their job search process – a process that takes hard work by all parties, CSMs and graduates alike. It’s a team effort, according to Crew Spence, Galvanize Director of Career Services.
“The graduates are set up to be successful because they take that same hard work, that same effort they applied to the bootcamp, and they apply it to the job search, too,” he said. “They have the benefit of a whole team backing them up, so they really have the ability to maximize the job search.”
Career services after graduation
We offer all coding bootcamp graduates career support for up to 180 days after graduation. According to Crew, taking advantage of this 180-day period is an important step toward launching your new career.
“If you go through the coding bootcamp, you have the skills you need to get hired and get started,” he said. “These 180 days are about persistence, fighting through imposter syndrome, and keeping the momentum from the program going, with us here to help you.”
For the first 6 weeks after graduation, alumni meet with their CSMs once a week to continue building out the foundations of their specific job search plan. (Graduates can and do meet with their CSMs throughout the entire 180-day period, but the first 6 weeks are structured to build out this foundation.)
With your CSM, you’ll polish up your resume if you need to, conduct practice interviews, and sort through roles that could be a good fit for you. To keep track of jobs you’ve applied to, who you’ve reached out to, offers you received, and more, we use a platform called Huntr, which is also where some of our hiring partners post open roles.
Each CSM is part of a “squad,” made up of other CSMs and their graduates. Throughout the 180 days, these squads get together online, expanding graduates’ access to others going through the same process. CSMs host workshops and meetups for their squads, focused on job search sticking points like struggling to get out a high volume of applications, salary expectations and negotiations, and having a hard time with anxiety around interviews. These squads offer space to continue learning, find comfort in others, and get answers to your questions as you navigate the search.
“One of the most helpful things I learned from [Galvanize’s Career Services team] was the importance of consistency in applying and reaching out to people,” said recent Beginner Coding Bootcamp graduate Cise Babatasi. “They emphasized the need to be persistent and not to get discouraged by rejections or silence from potential employers…Their advice and guidance were invaluable, and I feel really fortunate to have had their support as I navigated the post-program job market.”
Once you get an offer, like Cise did with Thryv, your CSM will help you strategize around negotiations, pulling from negotiation workshops and lectures that occurred during the program.
A growing alumni network awaits all graduates – 14,000+ strong
We believe the value of the Hack Reactor community can’t be overstated, both during and after the bootcamp. That’s why our Alumni team works hard to foster post-bootcamp connections.
The day you graduate from your coding bootcamp, you become part of an alumni network of more than 14,000 graduates who stay in touch through events and active Slack channels, and who help each other by sharing job openings, tackling on-the-job challenges, and more.
“I made a lot of friends and good connections from having access to the alumni Slack channel,” said Intermediate Coding Bootcamp graduate Zach Luther. “Both of my post-bootcamp jobs have come through alumni, so having access to the online network has been really awesome.”
As a graduate like Zach, you’ll have unending access to:
- Our Alumni Slack channels to connect and collaborate with fellow graduates, including channels focused on #career-advice and #whos-hiring.
- Events: both in-person and online to keep you connected and learning.
- Two monthly newsletters: one announcing upcoming alumni events, conferences, and links to open positions from the alumni network; another from our Partnerships team, featuring jobs posted by our hiring partners.
- Free access to Frontend Masters for one year to continue advancing your technical skills.
- Weekly Career Power Hours hosted by Crew Spence on Fridays at 10:30 am PT/1:30 pm ET. Crew covers career development topics and leaves time for Q&A when grads can ask any questions and engage in conversation.
- Opportunities to give back and mentor coding bootcamp students.
According to Jenna Jordan, Galvanize Alumni & Marketing Specialist, “It’s important for alumni to stay connected, whether they’re searching for their first post-bootcamp job, or advancing to leadership positions several years into their careers. We’re always here to help alumni find the resources they need and provide opportunities for them to take part in, and also support, the community.”
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Learn more about our coding bootcamps, and apply today!