From asking for help when stuck to pair programming and taking direction, being able to effectively work on a team is vitally important to the life of a junior developer. This session helps our students understand the techniques modern technology teams use to build camaraderie and transfer knowledge between team members.

At one point or another, every developer deals with the feeling of being stuck in a problem. Feelings of “imposter syndrome” are commonplace and students will inevitably question why they are even learning code in the first place. This session will normalize the feelings of “imposter syndrome”, give students a good vocabulary to describe their feelings and move them from a fixed learning mindset to a growth learning mindset.

Today’s modern-day workplace represents a rich melting pot of people from many different races, religions, sexual orientations, genders, etc. As we enter this workplace, we have to understand what makes us diverse. This session aims to get a better understanding of the lexicon that surrounds diversity. Participants will be guided through a series of exercises and discussions to better know themselves, and define identity. By increasing our students’ diversity lexicon, they will become effective advocates to creating a richly diverse and inclusive work culture.

Simply understanding the vocabulary to describe the diversity in the modern workplace is only half of the equation to having a diverse and inclusive workplace. This session aims to equip participants with preventative and reactive measures for practicing inclusivity. Participants will learn various ally skills to use with peers, and methods to combat insensitivity at the office.

Understanding one’s value to an organization comes from knowing oneself. This session will guide students through the BOSI personality assessment and give them a better understand of where their natural tendencies lie in an organization.

Many military personnel have little to no personal finance training which leads to a slew of financial issues. Going from a military salary to a technology salary is a significant increase and can either lead to more financial insecurity or put students on a track to financial success. In this session, we will talk through the importance of budgeting, getting out of debt, and how to set up an ecosystem for healthy finances

Salary negotiations are a vital part of every job search – too often, thousands of dollars are left on the table just because candidates don’t negotiate. This session will help students find the confidence and verbiage necessary to negotiate at the offer table through a series of role-playing situational exercises.

After finishing a coding bootcamp, students are often surprised to find that searching for a full-time position is often more difficult than the coding bootcamp curriculum itself. From endless cold emails to countless networking events, searching for a job is exhausting. This session will help students put job searching in context, help them get on a written plan, and overcome their fears of interviews.

Students are given time / instruction during the first hour of class each day to work on their LinkedIn profiles, prepare answers for behavioral interviews, and work through technical whiteboarding interview questions. In addition, students are taught 1-2 technical interview questions each week by senior developers in the industry.

Code Platoon is fortunate enough to have a number of volunteers from the recruiting and technology industry come in and teach our students. Through our Director of Career Development, we’ve come up with a number of sessions to best prepare students below:

Session 1: Building an online presence

This session reinforces the building of a strong online presence via Github, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Students are taught how to fully utilize Github by finding interesting projects, following active contributors, and giving “stars” to reputable code bases. During the session, students will be taught where to look for beginner-friendly open source software and build their online presence.

Session 2: Resume Writing Workshop

This workshop teaches students to carefully document the work they are doing, write notes on their specific contributions, and record what challenges they are facing with their learning new material. They are then tasked with starting to think through / document their own narrative – how they got to Code Platoon, their experience in the military, etc.

Sessions 3-5: Individual Resume Writing Coaching

During weeks 8 – 11, students will be meeting with volunteer recruiters vetted by the Director of Career Development up to 3 times to review and work on their resume.

Session 6: Final Interviews (Behavioral)

During this session, professional recruiters will talk to students on how to best present themselves in an interview and how to break down behavioral questions.

Session 7: Final Interviews (Technical)

During this session, a senior developer from the community will come into teach students how to approach and break down technical questions. This session will cover both answering whiteboarding questions and how to speak to their general technical knowledge.

Session 8: Mock Interview Day

The summation of the career curriculum is a mock interview day given by industry professionals. Technical and non-technical interviewers will come in and interview up to 5 students each and give feedback to students. Each student will have five 45-minute interviews with a mix of technical and behavioral questions.