Computer Science

4 out of 5 Companies Have Hired a Coding Bootcamp Graduate

• By Sri Ravipati
• 05/03/17

With tech skills in high-demand, coding bootcamps are doing pretty well, with Course Report estimating 18,000 graduates by the end of this year. These accelerated programs use a disruptive education model to quickly equip students with computer science (CS) skills and land jobs in the tech industry. As it turns out, four out of five companies will hire coding bootcamp graduates, according to Indeed.

The job search platform recently surveyed more than 1,000 HR managers and technical recruiters at companies of all sizes in the United States, a blog post explained. Indeed found the number of job seekers with bootcamp experience in its resume database has doubled each year since 2010 (see above graph).

Overall, perceptions of coding bootcamp graduates are mostly positive. About 51 percent of survey respondents think that coding bootcamps are a good way to bring diversity into the tech industry, while 50 percent say coding bootcamps efficiently retrain employees. Perhaps for these reasons, 42 percent of hiring managers and recruiters admitted they don’t have a preference as to whether a job candidate graduated from a traditional academic institution or a bootcamp.

More importantly, bootcamp graduates are held in high esteem, with 72 percent of employers answering that bootcamp grads are “just as prepared and likely” to be top-performers as candidates with computer science degrees. A small fraction (12 percent) said bootcamp grads are “more prepared and likely” to be high performers, while others (17 percent) said they are “not as prepared or likely,” the blog post said.

Eighty percent of employers surveyed have actually hired someone who has completed a coding bootcamp for a tech role at their company. Almost all of the companies surveyed said they would hire a bootcamp graduate again.

Still, 98 percent of employers would like to see more oversight — a request that has prompted the Council on Integrity Reporting and others to begin to publish bootcamps student outcomes data.