The bootcamp industry is growing. Our Bootcamp Market Report 2021 shows 44,254 people attended or graduated from bootcamps in 2020. That is a 30.32 percent increase from the previous year, and based on the rate of increase, we project 64,432 apprentices to enroll in 2021.
Driving this growth is the rising need for professionals who can adapt to a digital-first economy. The World Economic Forum report in 2020 highlights the need to reskill over 1 billion people by 2030. By 2022, 42 percent of core skills needed to perform jobs would change.
It, therefore, makes sense that you’d want to know how bootcamps can help you land tech jobs and make real changes in your life. However, there’s more to a bootcamp than just the year after graduation. That is, how do people in the software industry view bootcamp graduates in the long term? And will the education that you receive hold up as you’re entrusted with more complex tasks?
It can sometimes be difficult to find a straight answer to these questions, until now.
We’ve spoken to an alum from The Software Guild who is deep in her software development career. This graduate has been in the industry for over a year and has an excellent grasp on how the program sets apprentices up for a long-term career beyond a first new job.
The Software Guild boasts a 91.7% job placement rate among graduates, a feat achieved through its job-focused programs, all-around support, and expert instructors.
Apply to The Software Guild today.What Is The Software Guild?
The Software Guild is a coding bootcamp based in Akron, Ohio, founded in 2013 by a group of expert software developers. It gets its inspiration from old medieval guilds, where skilled masters passed on their knowledge to apprentices in a rigorous, hands-on process.
In 2018, the bootcamp became part of the Wiley Education Services, offering opportunities to people and organizations to gain the skills and knowledge necessary for success. To date, The Software Guild has produced over 1,400 graduates and has partnered with over 450 employers.
How The Software Guild Prepares Apprentices for the Workforce
The Software Guild offers a career-focused curriculum, all-around support, and experienced instructors to help you develop skills demanded in workplaces.
Career-Focused Curriculum
The Software Guild curriculum is designed to ensure that graduates are equipped with in-demand software developer skills that employers seek. It offers two programs: .NET/C# Bootcamp and Java Bootcamp.
The bootcamps run for 10 to 12 weeks. However, if you cannot commit to this schedule, you may opt for the Digital Coding Badges, which cover the same content as the regular bootcamps but at a more flexible schedule.
The Digital Coding Badges are available for both .NET/C# and Java specializations and have four levels, with each level lasting eight to 12 weeks. Note that you cannot skip badges. That means you must begin with the Level 1 badge and complete all four levels in proper order.
Both Java and C# are top-tier programming languages that are object-oriented with syntax derived from C and C++. These parallels help graduates of The Software Guild switch languages. As such, the school’s .NET/C# employer partners can hire Java graduates and vice versa.
Besides, both languages are in high demand. The number of jobs available for Java Developers in the United States alone is nearly a hundred thousand as of date. The average annual salary for Java Developers, at the time of writing, is $100,409.
Meanwhile, the available jobs for C# Developers are nearly 50,000, and the average annual salary is $94,306.
All-Around Support
You can expect help in finding jobs or preparing for the work you want with the available career services. The Software Guild offers profile meetings, career panels, alumni panels, mock interviews, follow-up email help, employer connect events, job search coaching, and career planning.
All these services allow you to take advantage of employer network access and connect with the school’s 450+ employer partners. You can also take advantage of portfolio development as every capstone project would showcase your skills and can be added to your portfolio for employers to see.
Finally, The Software Guild also offers resume and social media help, allowing you not only to build your resume but to create an impactful profile on popular sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Experienced Instructors
The Software Guild instructors each have over 10 years of experience and are more than qualified to teach you how to build amazing software. They also frame information with cases and workflow examples from a real-life coder’s daily tasks, thanks to their industry experience.
Given The Software Guild’s job outcomes, time to employment after graduation, and median salary plus the job market demand for C# and Java, its students are on the right track toward building a tech career after graduation. An alum of The Software Guild attests to this.
According to The Software Guild, the graduation rate in 2020 for their online program was 89 percent across all badges, with 209 total badge starts and 185 badge completions. Meanwhile, the job placement rate is 70.8 percent 90 days from graduation and 91.7 percent 180 days from graduation. Alumni reported a median salary of $60,000.
Graduates from The Software Guild find various careers including web developers, software engineers, software developers, associate consultant 1, and associate consultant.
Student Review: Is The Software Guild Worth It?
Brooke Benkovich took the Java cohort at The Software Guild. Before the bootcamp, she was not quite sure what she wanted to do.
She started in computer science, but since she was unsure if it was what she wanted, she ended up going into education. Brooke graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education, belatedly realizing that she didn’t want to teach either.
Brooke wanted to go back to school, perhaps explore something related to management or computer science again, but she did not want to go through a four-year course. What she was sure of, however, was that she enjoyed the logic and the problem-solving involved in coding when she was doing it on her own.
As Brooke was looking for programs to attend, she discovered The Software Guild. She left her job at an insurance company to enroll in the bootcamp’s full-time program. A month into her training, the pandemic broke out. Brooke found herself with no job and classes that shifted from in-person to online.
The shift to online was a non-issue since everyone in Brooke’s program was tech-savvy, so they were able to get into Zoom meetings easily and proceed with the course. The prospect of a career after the bootcamp amidst the pandemic, however, was a different story.
Brooke was very nervous. “I just quit my job.. There’s a pandemic and we just got plunged into a bit of a recession,” she said. But The Software Guild eased her worries. After grueling weeks of intensive training, she was hired right out of the bootcamp. “The Software Guild just really put me on the right foot,” she said.
“It was absolutely worth it.”
There were a lot of breakout sessions where Brooke had to work on her own. Still, there were also times when she worked with three others. “A lot of the projects we did were very interesting and very applicable,” she said, adding that it was unlike the more conceptual approach she had in university. She especially liked the class culture that allowed her to build connections with other like-minded people.
Right at the end of the course, Brooke and her classmates had an opportunity to do interviews with several companies. They received help in building their resumes, and people were coming in to help them practice for technical interviews, which, according to Brooke, was “different from anything that a lot of us had ever done.”
At The Software Guild, Brooke did not only learn how to be a software developer, but also “how to interview as a software developer and how to talk to people who are more experienced.” Indeed, she got hired right after the bootcamp, and she is still with the same company to date.
Brooke is now with HCL-Power Objects, where she started as a software engineer but now works as a product designer. She was in the Java cohort at The Software Guild, but HCL works primarily using C#. Regardless of not having experience with C#, Brooke found herself fitting right into that role. The Software Guild, she said, “really set us up for success.”
Post-bootcamp, Brooke’s career is getting even brighter. As of writing, Brooke is up for promotion very soon. “I might be taking on a little bit more of a managerial sort of a role,” she said.
If you’re thinking of joining a coding bootcamp, Brooke’s advice to you is to take the leap. “It changed my life,” she said, and it could change yours too.
Build a Long-Term Career in Tech with The Software Guild
As Brooke said, “If you’re interested in programming, and you enjoy the logic and practice, like all the practical applications, I would absolutely say, just do it.”
The program design at The Software Guild is not limited to learning practical applications of coding. It also prepares you for hiring right after the course. You learn to build your portfolio, write your resume and cover letter, and even make impactful LinkedIn or GitHub profiles.
Take that first step toward your dream career by submitting your application to The Software Guild today.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
