Ask HN: Those who hired bootcamp graduates, would you hire them again?

At MaxwellHealth we've hired 5 graduates from the general assembly intensive program, 2 for QA and 3 for Dev. The one take away I've had is that they all are coming with a baseline of knowledge that could let them contribute on day one.

For these 5 women, that was in addition to the soft skills necessary to succeed which I assume they all had before going into the program. I absolutely would hire them all again. We have interviewed several more from that program as well as other bootcamps who didn't exhibit those soft skills (bad attitudes, unable to communicate clearly what they worked on).

Most bootcamps have a group project, this for me is the key to whether they will be successful on your team. The group project shows from experience some of the challenges on working on a team - merge conflicts,how they manage time and how they work with others (who might not be on the same level or who have a bad attitude). One of our developers had worked on a team that had a team member drop out of the program mid way through their project. We happened to meet her teammate who told us that not only did they get it out on time but she had stepped up big time and made sure that all the features got out the door.

TL/DR : Hired 5 awesome women through General Assembly and would hire them all again.

We have good experiences hiring from dev bootcamps in europe but we take care to hire for attitude rather than technical skills.

Junior developers have a lot to learn and showing commitment and openness to be taught is really important when we commit to mentoring them professionally.

We are happy to hire more but our local bootcamp is out of graduates :)

I've been a bootcamp instructor for the last 2 years and have seen the full spectrum of students come through in that time; it's not so much about the programs themselves but rather the students as individuals. Some have a better understanding of their career goals and are more dedicated than others, and it typically reflects on the placements they'll receive after completing the program. IMO it's no different than the type of graduates coming out of the average university today.

Is there anything you feel like you should have learned or studied prior to bootcamp? (Either to make things easier or to have gotten more out of the program). A friend of mine is looking to join a bootcamp and comes from an economics background, so he's looking to get a good baseline before attending one.

I haven't actually hired anyone from a bootcamp, but I was involved a bit with a local one to a minor degree (a guest lecture once).

I do think college in C.S. changed my brain in interesting ways, but the number of really good professors I had was probably small in my major, and smaller outside.

I find myself mostly using some very minor bits of discrete math in the end, and college left me with a employeeable but misguided interest in Java that I quickly learned I probably didn't like so much. Still, there were some abstract projects that were conceptually difficult. On the job learning is more useful.

Looking at the program I was talking to's syllabus, it was pretty much all "near best of breed" tech presented in a good order with a focus on automated testing.

Universities are trying to avoid being career farms, and yes, you want to learn things that last, but I think the answer is somewhere in the middle.

Some of the best people I've worked with with art or music majors. On a similar front, C.S. programs don't do a great job of teaching what industry really feels like - if I had known, I might not have gone into C.S. :)

A C.S/related degree helps a hiring decision, but I'm not sold on it if there are projects to back it up, and is no guarantee of awesomeness. I do like to see some four year degree on a resume still though.

I think you somewhat want proof of being able to learn, and also learning how to learn, and an appreciation for things like reliability and performance and "good code" and things like that. However you come to them is ok.