H2 2022 Outcomes

Students reported: 32

Graduates available for employment: 31

Graduation rate: 100%

6 month job placement rate: 55% 

Average starting salary: $103,500

This data is collected and reported based on a new reporting standard we’ve created called TRACE. We created TRACE because we felt other reporting standards left a lot of gray area that we didn’t feel comfortable with. What the standard boils down to is this: If you graduated our program with the intent (and authorization) to work as a SWE, you’re included in our job placement data. There’s no “X% of grads we’ve deemed job-ready”, “Y% of grads who passed our final exam”, or “Z% of grads who remained in contact with us.” 

You can see a full outline of TRACE standards here.

Why are we reporting this now?

While we’re still in the process of completing a third party audit of our H2 2022 outcomes, we know these numbers are a huge deciding factor for prospective students. We’ve always been committed to being transparent and not playing games with our students, and in a tougher market, that’s more important than ever. We will update these numbers when our audit is completed, but until then, they are correct to the best of our knowledge.

In addition, we anticipate that H1 2023 numbers will reflect a similarly lower placement rate. Even though cohorts that graduated in the first half of 2023 have not yet all reached the 6 month post-graduation mark, we can anticipate a six-month placement rate right below 40%.

What are we seeing?

The job market is brutal right now, as you all know. While H1 2022 was not as difficult, grads from H2 2022 were affected dramatically by this shift. While our typical 6 month job placement rate in “normal” years was around 80-85%, it’s clear that grads are taking much longer to land jobs now. 

What are we doing to support grads?

We can’t control the market, but we can control how we respond to it. Our work to support our grads includes:

• Continued commitment to ethical admissions. That means we won’t admit you until we’re confident you’ll do well both in the class and on the job search. At a time when it would be much easier to loosen our admission standards in order to increase enrollments, we’ve doubled down on our commitment by raising the bar for our technical interview and adding a behavioral interview to our admissions process. This is designed to help ensure that the people we admit will have the interpersonal skills and dedication to succeed in a tough market.
• Revamping our career services curriculum. We’re constantly iterating on this based on what we see in the market and hear from recruiters and hiring managers. This year, we’ve added an extra week to our originally 16 (now 17) week program. This means that in addition to career prep lectures that are interspersed throughout the program beginning in Week 10, students also have two weeks dedicated solely to preparing them for the job search.
  • We have updated our curriculum and made it more relevant to this market. For example, we talk more extensively about how to network successfully and how to get comfortable with talking about one’s unique value proposition in networking conversations. 
  • Particularly in a tough market like this one, we know it’s important to be as prepared as possible. This reinforces for us why it’s important to keep our program as long as it is rather than shortening it to fewer weeks, as many of our competitors have.
• Investing in both group and individual career coaching. Group sessions are a vital way to stay motivated in the job search, hold yourself accountable, and remain grounded in community. That said, our grads are career changers with a huge variety of backgrounds, and a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t enough. That’s why we also offer one-on-one career coaching with our dedicated and experienced Director of Career Services, Sophie. These sessions allow us to tailor our support to a student’s individual needs.
• Continued lifelong career support. This offer isn’t new, but it’s more important now than ever. We’re proud to have successfully supported working grads who were impacted by layoffs in finding their next jobs in tech.
• Developing partnerships to aid in the job search. We’ve recently created a partnership with Merit to provide mentorship from industry professionals who can support with interview prep and ongoing development. We’re also in constant pursuit of more hiring partnerships to create more opportunities for our grads.
• Lastly, we’re constantly communicating with our team, students, alumni, recruiters, and more to learn what we can do better. We are lucky that, as a small bootcamp, we have the freedom to iterate on our program structure quite easily. As the times change, we will too.

What does the future look like for bootcamps?

This industry has seen a lot of layoffs and closures over the past year, but to be clear: We aren’t going anywhere. While bootcamps aren’t for everyone, they’re still a viable option for motivated career changers. We encourage anyone considering our program, or any other, to do their research to understand the grit required to be successful in a bootcamp and the state of the job market they’re going into. It’s critical to have realistic expectations of what your job search may look like and what obstacles you may face along the way. 

It’s also important to avoid catastrophizing. The market ebbs and flows and we’ve seen this time and time again. There is no indication that this will be any different. The jobs are still out there, even if they’re taking longer to find. We’re still seeing students landing SWE jobs. In the past few weeks we have definitely noticed an increase in the number of interviews scheduled and the number of confirmed offers. Graduates are being extremely resourceful, focusing on increasing their online presence and networking. They have also gone above and beyond to continue honing their skills in the form of new projects and various engagements such as hackathons, open source and volunteering, contract and freelance work. 

Remember that as you research bootcamps, a lot of what you read will learn more towards the fear and negativity in the industry at this time, but not the successes and the hope. Even in a difficult market, people are still changing their careers and lives with bootcamps, we just don’t hear as many of these voices.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at admissions@rithmschool.com.