Career Services Overview

At Epicodus, our mission is to make tech an accessible career to people who, either by birth or by circumstance, don’t have access to the resources, education, and learning the skills they need to get great jobs in the industry. As a part of this mission, career services is integrated throughout Epicodus to help you make the transition into your first technical role with guidance and support every step of the way. For a full breakdown of the career services schedule, you can refer to this lesson and your cohort’s syllabus.

Our Career Services Philosophy

Before we move any further, it’s important that we acknowledge a few inherent challenges that exist within the current hiring system

1. Bias. Bias is prejudice in favor of or against one person, or group compared with another. There are explicit (bias expressed openly) and implicit (bias outside of our conscious awareness) biases that hiring managers, developers, and other industry professionals may have in the hiring process. Most often, bias negatively impacts people of color, women, trans people and gender non-conforming people, and people with disabilities (though biases are not limited to these groups). While many companies have made strides to reduce explicit and implicit bias in hiring, biases can still impact hiring decisions, even if candidates are equivalently qualified and capable.
2. Applicant Tracking Software (ATS). ATS are often used by large companies, but also sometimes by smaller organizations to filter job applications automatically based on keywords before a real human ever sees them. Many qualified and capable candidates may be filtered out simply because the software doesn’t recognize the format of a resume or the application doesn’t meet an arbitrary threshold of skills.
3. Job market competition. There will always be competition with other candidates for entry-level roles, especially at large tech companies. The job market is constantly ebbing and flowing, so we must work with what roles are and are not available at any given time.

While we can acknowledge these inherent issues and do our best internally to combat bias in our own hiring practices, Epicodus is, at the end of the day, a small drop in the bucket when it comes to changing the industry-wide challenges that you may face as you enter your job search. With this in mind, our career services philosophy is that it is our responsibility to prepare you to work within the system as it exists right now.

The career services team will help you to develop the skills, habits, and application materials you need to find your first role in the current tech market. Our curriculum is designed with industry-standards in mind. We receive regular input from a curriculum advisory board on both our coding and career services curriculum, and our advisors take direct feedback from the companies and internship hosts that we work with to ensure that we are providing relevant and current information about the job market to you.

At the end of the day, you could be the best developer in the world, but no one will know that unless you can effectively showcase your technical skills in your applications and interviews. It’s our job to support you to do just that!

Meet the Team

Advisors

Advisors are your guide through the world of job searching and your career transition. You will have a dedicated advisor working with you from the very first day of class all the way through the program and into your job search. You’ll meet with your advisor individually and with your whole cohort at a variety of points throughout the program to discuss your goals, progress, concerns, and questions, get feedback on your work, and to cover topics related to your job search and career transition. After graduation, your advisor will support you in your job search for up to 1 year after your graduation date with regular one-on-one check-ins, additional application material reviews and mock interviews, and any other support that you feel you need.

Employer Outreach Specialist

You’ll work with Epicodus’ dedicated Employer Outreach Specialist primarily during internships and after graduation during your job search. Our Employer Outreach Specialist coordinates both paid internship opportunities and matchmaking internships at the end of your time in-class. They also work with companies to find job opportunities open to Epicodus candidates, connect students and graduates to potential employers, and share resources to help you build your network in the tech industry.