The Career Services Commitment outlines a set of weekly job search activity that graduates must fulfill in order to remain eligible for Flatiron’s Money-Back Guarantee (please see the Terms of Service you acknowledged upon enrollment for full eligibility requirements). What does weekly job search activity mean, and what does it consist of? We have outlined specific activities that will help you to stay on track, source opportunities, and spend your time effectively to help you move closer to your goal of getting a job.
Since we opened our doors in 2012, we have had the opportunity to guide over 1,500 graduates through job searches — and see what students did to land themselves jobs. We have thought carefully about how to guide our students to be proactive and successful in their job search, by outlining specific activities that successful students did to facilitate their job offers. This information helped us to craft the Career Services Commitment, which includes requirements for specific activities we ask students to engage in every week they are job-seeking. Those include:
- Make contact with at least eight (8) individuals, verified by first, last name and title, at prospective employers within your field of study with respect to the Money-Back Guarantee Qualifying Program (recording evidence of such contact to be furnished upon request by Flatiron School) and update your job-search tracking tool with a written summary of all such job search activities
- Post at least one (1) written or video blog post (containing your original thoughts and ideas, providing all appropriate citations and references to third-party content from other sources), focused on a topic in your field of study with respect to the Money-Back Guarantee Qualifying Program, on a public URL that can be verified by Flatiron School
- For students enrolled in a course in the software engineering or data science fields of study, post at least 5 GitHub contributions per week to your public GitHub profile
- For students enrolled in a course in the design field of study, you must either (i) complete one (1) extra credit assignment from your curriculum each week, (ii) complete three (3) modules in the track outside your specialization each week, or (iii) start one (1) design challenge from one of the approved web pages each week
Let’s dive deeper into each of these activities...
(Software Engineering, Data Science, and UX/UI Design students)
View our Career Services Commitment Contact Guidelines to understand what does and doesn't count as 'contacts'.
We know it feels great to hit “Submit” on a job application. The “Submit” button turns into a green check-mark, which literally sends a dopamine rush to your brain. It’s so tempting to bask in that green check-mark and think you’ve done your part, that now the ball is in the employer’s court. But we’ve seen time and time again that this is an ineffective strategy. Why?
People don’t get jobs from job boards, they get jobs from people! When submitting an application electronically, the chances are small that your application is being carefully reviewed by a human. As a matter of fact, most companies utilize applicant tracking systems (aka. ‘ATS’) to quickly scan your application to identify keywords to determine if a candidate should move forward. If all you do is hit “Submit,” you’re going to be on the bottom of a digital pile of hundreds of resumes, and a human may never actually lay eyes on your materials. In addition, it’s estimated that 70-80% of jobs are never even posted.
Instead of relying on the “black hole” of job board submissions, we want you to focus on connecting with an actual human who is relevant to your search. Connecting with people allows you to build out your professional network and develop relationships with people who may be able to help you. It gives you a chance to tell your story, and to communicate your passion for your craft.
Connecting with people can happen via two means: in-person or electronically.
- In-person - informal networking: You could go to a meetup or an event and strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to you, or approach the presenter at the end of the event. Meeting new people face to face is a great way to build connections. However, simply having a nice conversation and parting ways does not guarantee that this person becomes part of your ongoing network. You should nurture this contact by sending them a follow-up email the next day (or the same night!) to keep communication going.
- In-person - formal interview processes: Another way of connecting with people is throughout the stages of an interview process. Every time you have a meaningful conversation (including formal interviews), it helps you to advance in your job search!
- Electronically - warm outreach: Maybe you email an old colleague, call up a former roommate, or your brother connects you to his girlfriend’s mother (all of whom work in jobs you want to work in, or at companies you want to work for). You schedule a phone call, a coffee, or grab drinks to learn more about their role and their company, and ideally to learn about openings and/or contacts in their network that can be helpful. In this situation, you are connecting individually with a person who can provide advice, guidance, and/or support in your search - these activities count!
- Electronically - cold outreach: It is completely normal, and appropriate, to send cold outreach emails to contacts at companies you are interested in. Maybe the company isn’t hosting an event anytime soon, or you have no personal connections there. That’s okay! You don’t want to lose the opportunity to get your foot in the door, so you can use email in hopes of opening the line of communication. As long as your email is professional, polite, and clear as to why you are reaching out, it won’t be negatively received. Sure, some people won’t answer - and that’s okay! It is imperative to generate quality, customized outreach to pique employers’ interest and elicit responses.
You can fulfill your goal of 8 individual contacts per week with outreach emails, or a combination of event follow-up emails, cold outreach, informal coffees with personal connections, and/or interviews! The idea is to connect with real live people throughout your search. If you have specific questions (which you will), make sure to connect with your Career Coach, so they can help you to navigate every step of this process!
Examples of quality individual contacts:
- Different stages of an interview
- Phone screen, video call, on-site/meet the team, etc.
- Cold emailing a fellow practitioner who works at a company you’re interested in
- Having coffee, lunch, or a networking call with a friend, former colleague, family member, friend of a friend, your girlfriend’s mother’s sister’s landlord who works in your field of study and may be able to connect you to some influential people, etc.
- Meeting new people at a meetup or event, and sending an email the next day to keep the line of communication open
- Sending an email to a fellow practitioner, asking for advice/feedback on a project, resume, or blog post (advice helps you to become a better practitioner and job seeker!)
Note on External Recruiters
Talking to external/3rd party recruiters / recruiting/staffing agencies does not count towards the 8 connections per week (as they are not individuals at prospective employers within your field of study). If you want to talk to an external recruiter, that is okay! But it will need to be in addition to your 8 individual contacts. (Check out this article that explains why we encourage students to focus their efforts directly on the companies they want to work for.)
Keep in mind that some leads that you pursue will respond quickly, while others might take a week or two to get back to you. Some you won’t ever hear from, and that’s okay. This is why we suggest the amount of activity that we do, because we know what amount of activity it takes to run a successful job search.
So, how do you tell if a company is an external/3rd party recruiting/staffing firm? There are a few ways. First, if their company name contains words such as 'Technology Staffing' or 'Solutions', this could be an indicator, but it's not always guaranteed. What you should do is always go to the company's website and/or LinkedIn page to research thema and see what type of organization they are; there you should be able to quick ascertain what they do. Often they'll say this right up front in their 'About Us', 'Services, or 'What We Do' sections. Also, look closely at their job postings; if they use language 'Our client is looking for...' anywhere in the posting, it is almost certain the role is for another company ('client') that they are recruiting on behalf of.
While external/3rd party recruiting/staffing firms are aplenty, here are a few of the more well-known, larger ones: Michael Page, TEK Systems, Robert Half, PEAK, Kforce, Ransdtad, Avanti, Insight Global, ASGN and CyberCoders (these are just a few). If you are uncertain whether or not a company falls into this category, please connect with your career coach for guidance.
TIP: Protect Yourself
While most recruiting/HR people and companies you interact with are fully legit, beware anyone who asks you to share your personal and/or private financial information (other than as part of completing a formal background check, application etc. for employment right before or at the time of a formal job offer/onboarding process). Equally, beware anyone who asks you to send them money in exchange for access to job opportunities, technical equipment to perform a job, etc. Report this to your career coach right away so the two of you can vet/investigate further together.
(Software Engineering and Data Science students)
As a job seeker, you need to be building and selling your personal brand all the time. Your GitHub profile link – where examples of your code/projects live – will be included in your resume, your LinkedIn, and on your personal portfolio, which means employers will have the opportunity to browse through it. Potential employers are interested in seeing if you are actively coding/practicing your craft; specifically, whether you have continued building your skills after graduation. Use this as an opportunity to showcase your passion and continued learning!
Of course, there are private repos, labs, and projects that don’t live on GitHub, and a lack of activity doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t practicing your skills – but employers can’t see that, so it’s as good as invisible when it comes to your candidacy for jobs. It’s important to show weekly activity on your public GitHub profile. That’s why the Career Services Commitment requires that you make a minimum of 5 public GitHub contributions weekly. Emphasis on minimum!
Note: Each student is responsible for ensuring that their contributions are correctly authored and are appearing on their public GitHub profile (Contributions chart) every week. Read this to ensure that you are properly authoring your contributions.
Also, read this to ensure you understand how GitHub counts contributions.
A question we often get is: what does the contribution have to look like? How big does it have to be? The specifics are up to you - but make sure each contribution is meaningful. It’s pretty easy to go in and change a ReadMe or write a small piece of code to show a contribution was made. But the content of the changes can also be seen by employers. Our suggestion is to constantly be working on a side project that you are passionate about, and, ideally, daily. Make sure the contribution is adding to something larger, and to something that is visible. We want to ensure you are practicing regularly, and keeping your skills sharp.
(Software Engineering, Data Science, and UX/UI Design students)
This topic is covered at length here, but we’re touching on it again because a weekly blog is a required activity within the Career Services Commitment.
Blogs demonstrate to employers that you’re passionate about your craft and can communicate the projects you’re building and the concepts you’re learning to a general audience – an important skill for job seekers. When an employer peruses the LinkedIn profiles of 2 candidates with equal credentials – but one is an active blogger on technical topics, and the other isn’t – it’s obvious which candidate the employer is going to be more excited to speak with. You want to be that candidate!
You can blog about almost anything related to your learning. You will be learning new skills, technologies and frameworks along your journey. You will be implementing those new skills to projects, getting stuck, and implementing solutions. Write about it all! Topics of interest, for you and for others, can truly run the gamut from solving a technical or design challenge to lessons learned while interviewing. When you begin to identify companies of interest – and even interview with them – look out for topics that could be relevant to the company, and write about them!
The key here is also to post your blog to a public URL: Medium, Facebook, LinkedIn, your personal website – anywhere that can generate activity and get your blog seen by others. If you have any specific questions, just connect with your Career Coach.
(UX/UI Design students)
Complete one of the following 3 activities weekly and provide a link to evidence of completion of the activity: (Examples of links to verify completion include: Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.)
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Complete one (1) extra credit assignment from your UX or UI curriculum each week
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Complete three (3) modules in the track outside your specialization each week
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Start one (1) design challenge from one of the following websites each week:
These exercises will keep you sharp and your skills up as you are looking for your new job opportunity.
We want to make sure you understand exactly what it takes to remain eligible for the Money-Back Guarantee – because ultimately, those are the activities and behaviors it takes to be successful as a job seeker. (The full criteria is outlined here.) Finding a job takes a ton of work, patience, and motivation, and while we’ve got all the resources and supports you’ll need to be successful, it is your job to put in the energy and effort.
If you have questions about or want to talk through these requirements, our approach, or anything else job search related, talk to your Career Coach or feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] and a Career Coaching team member will respond.
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
Google
Alibaba
D3
Tencent