Everyone loves Free Code Camp, why shouldn't they? Quincy Larson basically devotes his life to keeping Free Code Camp up and running and constantly growing, for that he should be very proud.
However if you are currently going through Free Code Camp's curriculum, hoping to one day land a job. You should stop as soon as possible.
Why?
Free Code Camp is a great free resource for people, but it is lousy at getting people jobs. The entire Internet has too many free resources! The fact is that if your goal is to land a junior dev job by taking Free Code Camp's curriculum, you have about a 1% chance of doing so.
If you look up Quincy Larson's profile on Quora he says over 300,000 learn to code and build projects for non profits. According to their home page Free Code Camp has gotten 2,000 people developer jobs. Let's do some basic math here:
That's a dismal 0.67% of people who start Free Code Camp actually get a paid dev job!
I also clicked on the link on Free Code Camp to read the camper's stories, maybe I am wrong, but many of those stories aren't actually hired as devs or even in a real "techy" job. Click on the Linkedin profile and you will see things like "freelance developer". The point is maybe these aren't the 2,000 they are referring too, but still if only 1% of people get hired that is really low!
Again I think it is a great collection of free resources, but I don't think it is a great way to go about getting a dev job. Think about it, do you think you are the 1%??? Now of course if you want to devote the next 2 years of your life to the program instead of going to college, that's cool.
Quincy has a really good answer on Quora about this idea actually that I like:
Quincy's Answer
Literally your chances of getting hired with free code camp are slim to none. If you want to do Free Code Camp to get badges, and look cool, that's fine. If however you have legit bills to pay or people you have to provide for financially then you are mainly wasting your time. If you want to have a tech job actually making money, a company paying you in the shortest amount of time than you need a clear plan to make that happen.
I also clicked on the link on Free Code Camp to read the camper's stories, maybe I am wrong, but many of those stories aren't actually hired as devs or even in a real "techy" job. Click on the Linkedin profile and you will see things like "freelance developer". The point is maybe these aren't the 2,000 they are referring too, but still if only 1% of people get hired that is really low!
Again I think it is a great collection of free resources, but I don't think it is a great way to go about getting a dev job. Think about it, do you think you are the 1%??? Now of course if you want to devote the next 2 years of your life to the program instead of going to college, that's cool.
Quincy has a really good answer on Quora about this idea actually that I like:
Quincy's Answer
Literally your chances of getting hired with free code camp are slim to none. If you want to do Free Code Camp to get badges, and look cool, that's fine. If however you have legit bills to pay or people you have to provide for financially then you are mainly wasting your time. If you want to have a tech job actually making money, a company paying you in the shortest amount of time than you need a clear plan to make that happen.
Quincy is being honest with what he does, it clearly admits No one has ever finished Free Code Camp, as of January 2016
According to this answer by Quincy Larson on Quora:
How many people have finished Free Code Camp so far?
I just think that the average person who signs up for Free Code Camp really believes that if they do the course work they will land a job. The truth is your chances are slim to none with Free Code Camp, you need to learn how to market yourself, not just write code. Remember this:
"Only 50% of landing an entry level tech job is coding ability, the other 50% is people skills and knowing how to market yourself!"
How many people have finished Free Code Camp so far?
I just think that the average person who signs up for Free Code Camp really believes that if they do the course work they will land a job. The truth is your chances are slim to none with Free Code Camp, you need to learn how to market yourself, not just write code. Remember this:
"Only 50% of landing an entry level tech job is coding ability, the other 50% is people skills and knowing how to market yourself!"
Don't just do coding tutorials and think someone will see your cool computer stickers one day at Starbucks and offer you a job. Figure out a way to be different, don't do what millions of other people are unsuccessfully doing. You can learn to code and you can get hired, but you need to set yourself apart from the rest of the crowd by being remarkable and unique!
