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Employers: Why You Should Consider Hiring a Coding Bootcamp Graduate

According to a recent report by Indeed, 80% of US tech hiring managers and recruiters said they have hired at least one coding bootcamp graduate. Even more impressive, 99.8% of those who have hired one said they would hire another coding bootcamp grad again.

These results are great news since those surveyed indicated that applications from these coding bootcamp graduates have gone up over the past few years. In fact, Indeed reports that since 2010 it has seen a 200% increase in job-seekers with bootcamp experience every single year!

If you find yourself regularly looking for new development team members and have never considered hiring a coding bootcamp graduate the data proves you may be missing out. To help prove the case for the coding bootcamp grad, let's discuss what makes them so valuable:

Valuable Backgrounds and Skills

How much more valuable would a developer be if they had experience in your industry? How much time and expense would it save if you didn't have to wait for a new team member to familiarize themselves with the specifics? Perhaps most importantly, how much more effective would your web and software solutions be if they were designed and built by someone with experience in your field? Well, chances are there is a coding bootcamp grad out there with experience in your industry who is looking to bring that knowledge to bear along with their newly acquired web development skills.

In addition, you can find developers who graduated from coding bootcamps with complementary experience and skills to your business you might not have even considered looking for. For instance, are you in Marketing? How about a new developer with experience in editing or copywriting? This can be a challenge to find in a traditionally educated developer, but there are a growing number of new developers out there with a huge range of skills that may turn out to be even more valuable than just development.

Practical Education

Unlike traditional education, coding bootcamps approach teaching software development with a learn by doing approach. This means schools focus less on theory and more on a practical application of tools and technologies in order to learn them. In fact, most coding bootcamps are set up to emulate how students would work and develop in their career as if they were professional developers. This enables coding bootcamp students to better transition to their new career and be a productive member of your team faster than if they had come from a more traditional training or educational background.

Supply to Meet Increasing Demand

"We have a seemingly infinite demand for software engineers, and not enough computer science graduates to fill the needs of companies, which stretches far beyond traditional tech companies and startups," Raj Mukherjee, Indeed's senior vice president of product, told TechRepublic in an interview regarding the results of their report. "Nearly every company has demand for technical talent, and coding schools are a great way to retrain workforces for these types of jobs. Expanding the pool of available talent through coding schools should be welcomed by employers."

Give a Coding Bootcamp Graduate a Chance

Imagine giving up on your career to sacrifice thousands of dollars and months of time to learn something new. How sure of your choice would you have to be, and how badly would you have to want it, to make that kind of decision?

Now, doesn't that sound like someone you would like to hire? According to almost 1,000 hiring managers in the Indeed survey, you won't regret it.

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Jason Ephraim Jason Ephraim Campus Director, Houston LinkedIn