How Is Tech Elevator’s Career Coaching Program Different?
When people think about switching careers to the tech industry, most zero in on technical learning and its application. What they quickly realize is missing—career coaching on how to break into the tech industry’s job market.
In fact, this is where most coding bootcamps fall short. Tech Elevator found a solution through its career coaching offering—The Pathway Program™.
The Pathway Program™ runs in parallel with the technical curriculum, with the ultimate goal of job placement. The program is run by experienced Career Coaches and Recruiters, who are not only working with students on polishing their soft skills, but guiding them in their job searches for their first job in technology.
Students attending Tech Elevator don’t need any previous technical experience whatsoever. In fact, our hiring partners prefer hiring our students because of the transferable skills they bring to the table on top of their newfound coding skills. Tech Elevator students are real, everyday people with incredible outcomes.
Professional Career Coaching: The Pathway Program™
So, what is the program all about?
Pathway runs right in line with everything we do in the technical curriculum, including modules that deep dive into self-discovery, personal branding and career connections. There’s a heavy focus on developing our student’s soft skills to go along with their new technical skills. Pathway also commits to helping students secure jobs even after graduation for up to six months. The program provides coaching and training, as well as job search assistance throughout the duration of the cohort. The total amount of hours dedicated to this program ranges from 40 to 45 hours per cohort, including the following activities:
- Presentations/Workshops: Running throughout the program, these presentations and workshops prepare students for their job search in the tech industry. Some topics covered are on LinkedIn, types of technical roles, crafting a killer resume, navigating your job search and networking. Our presentations are a mix of asynchronous content as well as live, interactive workshops.
- 1:1 career coaching: Our students develop a strong relationship with their Pathway Program Director over the course of the program through 1:1 career coaching sessions. These are designed to outline career goals and a path for the students to attain those goals. Students continue to meet with their Pathway team after graduation until they secure a job in technology.
- Career panels: Campuses will host a variety of Career Panels during our full-time program, each with a different theme. The guests on these panels consist of Tech professionals, Recruiters, alumni and HR Managers all sharing their experiences along with tips and tricks to help navigate the tech industry.
- Mock interviews: Students will have a number of opportunities to practice their interviewing skills during the cohort–both on the technical and the behavioral side. Mentors from our hiring partners are also brought in to give students practice interviewing with folks in the industry.
- Employer Showcases: Showcases are informal introductions that give companies the opportunity to talk with Tech Elevator students directly about who they are, what they do, and why students might want to work there.
- Employer Matchmaking: This is best described as “speed dating for jobs.” We believe in making connections with great employers and great employees easy. For that reason, our Matchmaking process matches students with our hiring partners with openings for junior-level roles and gives them an opportunity to interview with them.
Where does Pathway fit into a typical, full-time student’s day? In the morning, students will dive into learning and developing their skills as software developers. In the afternoon, their time is split between continued programming exercises and Pathway sessions.
From a high level, Pathway helps students identify what career paths in technology provide the best fit for their skills and experiences while preparing them for the job search process. With a 90% job placement rate for its graduates, Tech Elevator is leading the way for coding bootcamps developing quality tech talent in the industry.
Not Just the Technical Skills: Navigating your Job Search
The ultimate goal of any coding bootcamp and higher education institution should be job placement. This is where Tech Elevator’s Pathway Program™ outshines the rest. The three phases of the program dive into key areas of any professional job search all with guided instruction from their Pathway Program Director. These areas of focus in the program are listed below:
Phase 1: Self Discovery
The Pathway Program Directors ease the students into the Pathway Program™ by focusing on their strengths and transferable skills. What skills and strengths are they bringing to the table and how will those benefit them in their new careers in technology? During this first phase, our Pathway team helps our students develop their ‘story’.
Phase 2: Career Prep and Personal Branding
This phase is truly the ‘bread and butter’ of the Pathway Program–this is where our Pathway team helps our students with their resumes, LinkedIn profiles, interview skills, and more. Our team takes several weeks to focus on ensuring our students are polished and interview-ready before they begin their job search.
Phase 3: Connections and Career
Finally, the students are applying the skills they’ve learned thus far at networking events, applying to jobs and finally Matchmaking.
While Matchmaking is the final step of the Pathway Program™ before graduation it isn’t uncommon for students to go through Matchmaking and not receive an offer. These students will still get continued job search support for 180 days after graduation. They’re able to schedule weekly touch bases with their Pathway Directors and map out further job opportunities to apply for. Our Pathway Program team will continue to work with students and make employer connections to ensure they are successful in finding a job. However, most Tech Elevator graduates get placed within 90 days after graduation.
How Tech Elevator’s Pathway Program™ Is Different
A huge difference that makes Tech Elevator stand out amongst other coding bootcamps, and even higher education institutions, is its audited job placement numbers. This is largely due to the Pathway Program™ leading students on their job search and guiding them on their journey to a career in tech.
Of Tech Elevator’s graduates, 90% are placed in jobs in the tech field. This data is audited by the Council on Results and Record (CIRR), which is becoming increasingly more important as some bootcamps, as well as higher education institutions, avoid sharing transparent and accurate job placement data.
It is the educational institution’s responsibility to assist in job placement after graduation. If not, then what was the point of acquiring those skills?
When looking at other bootcamps, it’s imperative to your success that you look into not only their technical curriculum but their job placement rates. How is your choice of bootcamp getting you to the ultimate goal of getting a career in tech?
Ready to start your journey into tech?
Take our free 15-Minute Aptitude Test today to see how your skills compare to those of a software developer.
Written by Kelly Brucker, Former Lead Pathway Program Director at Tech Elevator