The UX bootcamp model is broken
Sorry, would-be UX designers, don’t believe the marketing hype, UX bootcamps won’t do it for most of you. The model is broken. At best, you will get an introduction to UX — which is great — but most of these bootcamps won’t prepare you for a real-world job.
Outrageously, some online UX courses offer “12-week zero-to-employment” with no experience necessary. They’re not cheap even as some trumpet a “job guarantee” as bait (read the fine print). Courses cost $6,000 to $12,000 with some offering deferred payment schemes where a deposit is taken with the student paying the rest after they get their first job — a bit of sharp practice.
That’s right, step right up, ladies and gents, we make it super-easy for you to pay! Bootcamps have lending partners such as Climb Credit and accept every form of payment under the sun, checks, monthly payment plans, deferred tuition plans, and “low-cost loan options.” If you don’t get a job after graduation and insist on getting your money back under the job guarantee — well, good luck with that. You read the T&Cs, right?
UX students need to be well informed about what’s happening. They deserve the truth. Disappointingly, the way these UX bootcamp rackets are marketed, they’re doing a giant disservice to would-be UX students and the perception of the profession.
No one should have any delusions about the fact that all these bootcamps are in it for the money. Springboard, Designlab, Thinkful, CareerFoundry, Dribbble, General Assembly, and others are chiefly for-profit, ed-tech startups. Many of them are financed by venture capitalists who demand profits before anything else. When we look past the virtue-signaling, noble-sounding slogans, these bootcamps don’t care much if a graduate actually lands a job or not. It’s all about profit.
They do an exceptional job of over-promising. However, the proof is in the pudding and the numbers aren’t pretty. They’re massively underdelivering. Fudging track-record numbers, they tend to prey on unsuspecting UX students by wrapping their offerings in honey-dipped, virtue-laden marketing ballyhoo, like “futureproofing your career,” and how their “graduates have been hired by the biggest names in tech.” Maybe a teeny-tiny percentage: don’t fall for it.
Aside from the students, they’re also taking advantage of industry “mentors” by paying them a pittance — I put “mentors” into quotes because the knowledge and skill of many of these mentors are so poor that they themselves could use some proper mentoring — but that’s another story (addressed in a little bit).
I know the question will inevitably pop up, “How are fledgling UXers supposed to get started?” I think there’s a better, cheaper way to get into UX. (Read on for a possible solution.)
I know getting a fair amount of flak is guaranteed — but hear me out. For more than five years, I was a mentor at two of these UX bootcamps. I saw things from the inside and also spoke with other UX mentors who mostly agree on the issues plaguing these bootcamps. Let’s first look at the problem and then discuss several different models for a possible solution.
The Problem with UX Bootcamps
Number one: a “certificate of completion” does not amount to anything much in the industry. Everyone knows that UX bootcamps are only meant to provide introductory courses. As one bootcamp truthfully exclaims, it’s to “jump-start your career in UX design.” It’s well-known that they barely manage to teach the skills and know-how required to be a working UXer.
Although “having a bootcamp certificate demonstrates investment and commitment to a practice” as another UX mentor put it, in reality, no seasoned professional is prepared to risk their job for hiring someone who is simply not able to deliver.
Businesses hire people and expect them to immediately provide value. No one can seriously buy into the notion that anyone can learn UX in 3 months and voilá, they’re ready to work in the industry. Having a course completion certificate and a UX portfolio does not earn anyone a job — evidence of abilities, skills, and knowledge does.
“Certificates are always an abstraction of effort without much insight into a bootcamp’s curriculum quality and learning. So long as the assembly line exists to push people through to get the certificate, there will always be a degree of skepticism from people hiring.” — Nick Busman, ex-Springboard mentor
Recruiters and hiring managers spend far more time looking through UX portfolio case studies than looking for UX bootcamp or university names on a resume. Why? They’re looking for strong problem-solving and critical thinking skills, demonstration of abductive reasoning, evidence of strong design decisions and rationale, and overall work quality.
The lack of proper student screening is part of the problem. As one UX mentor at Springboard put it, “students are not screened properly before getting accepted into the program. It becomes very apparent to mentors working with them that they will never succeed as UX designers. In the end, they get the certificates only because they paid for the program.” There’s that profit motive again!
Number two: mentor quality has dropped. In recent years most highly skilled UX mentors with deep industry experience have quit UX bootcamps in large numbers. As a result, bootcamps have been forced to set the bar low. These days, the threshold for being accepted as a mentor is 2–3 years of professional experience, if that.
Bootcamps are focused on marketing and signing up students. If they can grab a “mentor” without much experience but from a big tech, marquee name they’ll go for that because they can put that person on their site as a marketing tactic. Everyone should understand this and proceed with caution. The promo message of getting “1–1 guidance from expert mentors” is questionable since most bootcamp mentors could rarely be called “experts.”
“I have very rarely seen a mentor that I thought was a good mentor with five or more years of specialized UX experience.” — Debbie Levitt from Delta CX
Number three: UX bootcamps delude students into thinking they’re going to walk into a job shortly after graduation. In reality, anecdotal evidence from UX mentors says only 30–50% of graduates are proficient enough to get an entry-level job. Many struggle for years to find jobs in UX largely because they lack the “job-ready skills employers are looking for” (Thinkful marketing lingo).
Myth, legend, and razzle-dazzle all rolled into one, Springboard splashes “build a stellar portfolio curated from hands-on projects with clients” on its pages — yet, no one has actually seen one. Truth be told, most graduate portfolios harm students because they’re teeming with “UX-bootcampy” case studies that don’t demonstrate the ability to solve real-world UX challenges. Hiring managers and design managers are not impressed by UX deliverables piled into a jumble of case studies.
“UX bootcamps don’t prepare students for real-world jobs because when senior or higher UX practitioners look at what bootcamps are teaching, they usually say ‘Wow. This looks nothing like what I do.’” — Debbie Levitt
Number four: the quality of education is seriously questionable. Students are on their own. Several online bootcamps just have students read freely available articles and watch videos in a self-paced, self-managed environment. It does not equate with getting a solid education in UX — even with weekly mentor calls.
“The curriculum is not presented in a way that’s easy for a student to absorb. It also takes too much time as a lot of information is repeated through numerous articles and video material collected from around the web. Some of it is outdated so I need to explain during the calls how things work.” — a Springboard UX mentor
Fledgling UX students should not be seduced by hyperbolical advertising catchlines like “get your 12-week user experience design diploma program,” or by UX bootcamps promising “certified courses” where students “not needing any prior design knowledge” will graduate with an “interview-ready portfolio.” For a shocking example, for around $100 bucks you can “build your user research and UX design skills and get a job in UX” in 3 weeks on Udemy! Wow.
“They’re all doing so much, so wrong. From predatory financing to huge promises about the money they’re going to make… from, ‘you could get a job in 6 months to deceptive terms & conditions that make people think they can get their money back if they don’t get a job. In most cases, they don’t get their money back. Sometimes they may get a whole or partial refund, but many times it comes with a ‘gag order’ which means students can’t talk about the refund, or their experiences at the bootcamp — another reason why we don’t hear as much negative stuff coming out about these bootcamps. Students are under a legal obligation not to speak about their experience at all. Which is absolutely wild.” — Debbie Levitt
At some bootcamps, the random collection of online course material is outdated, some of it is five years old. In an industry moving at a rapid pace that’s not very sound! Many articles are misinformed, outright wrong, and pernicious — selected by someone who doesn’t know the subject matter at all, and has no business curating a UX course.
Students typically receive zero training in soft skills, presentation skills, or team collaboration skills — prerequisites for competence in the real world. Because it’s easy, most bootcamps tend to focus on UX deliverables (personas, wireframes, user flows, sitemaps, prototypes, etc.) not the science and craft behind great UX. Building a great user experience has a lot to do with psychology. It’s nuanced and subtle. It is about applying a vast toolkit of methods, frameworks, and processes, and knowing what to use and when.
Number five: the numbers are not rosy. Due to a lack of motivation, course completion rates are low (60–65%), as are “hireability levels.” Here’s an interesting read from the UX Collective, the real-world experience of receiving 370 applications for a junior UX designer job: I just reviewed 370 UX applications.
The entry-level UX job market is saturated with fresh UX bootcamp grads. After all, they were promised $85,00-$100,000 annual salaries in the US. It’s not uncommon to receive over 500 applications for an entry-level UX position. Despite the bootcamp hype that students will end up with “a portfolio that you can use in your job search,” most graduate portfolios are not very good and will be passed over.
Possible Solutions
New models are needed. Here are four different paths would-be UXers could follow that would cost much less yet provide better outcomes. For landing a job, these programs should be followed by a period of career coaching with a UX industry professional who thoroughly understands UX career tracks. On Mentorcruise, as an example, the cost of such a coach is between $90-$240 per month and is well worth it.
First, ditch expensive UX bootcamps. A good option for fledgling UX designers — very much doable today — is to enroll in Google’s low-cost intro course to UX (for under $300). While on that course or after, use a mentoring platform, such as Mentorcruise (around $240/month for 1:1 UX mentoring) or ADPList (free) where they can carefully select their own professional industry mentor (as opposed to being given a random one by a bootcamp). A year under such an arrangement would cost around $3,000. Much less than the $9,000-$12,000 some bootcamps ask for, and that’s just for the course.
Second, apprenticeships. Finlay Stevens-Hunt here on the UX Collective has written a great article on how design leaders can help “budding designers who are unprepared for the world.” A possible scenario for UX students is to start with Google’s low-cost intro course, followed by a “UX apprenticeship” in the real world under an experienced senior coach/mentor for a year or two.
Many other trades use the apprenticeship model, in some countries more than others (an apprenticeship system is widely used in Germany). It would be great if design leadership could figure this out and open the doors.
Third, try a mixed-combo model (for about a year and a half).
- Start with Google’s low-cost intro course to UX for six months (most learners can complete the certificate for less than $300 USD)
- Follow that with a robust summer internship program for 4–5 months
- Finish with six months of mentoring/career coaching to keep broadening and sharpening UX skills while job searching (and hopefully getting one)
Again, the summer internship program is where design leadership needs to step up to create and manage these programs. Recent grads from introductory courses can work with senior UXers and attain real-world experience. They would get an opportunity to practice the prerequisite soft and hard skills, collaboration, presentation, and more, which would eventually enable them to transition into a UX job.
Fourth, for a really out-of-the-box idea, make learning UX different: live-stream classes on YouTube and TikTok. “Creators” together with industry experts could fire up their imaginations with this one. Make it fun and do it for less. Live-stream a six-month schedule of sponsor-supported UX learning sessions and boost it with a community on Slack for peer critiques, working together on problems as teams, and facilitating deeper conversations around UX. As with other models, this kind of learning should be supplemented with internships, apprenticeships, workshops, 1:1 mentorship, and career coaching for a good while to set fledgling UX designers up for success.
👋🏻 Hello! Thanks for reading and getting to the end of the article. 🙂
I’m now available for starting people on their UX designer careers through my UX Course or for ongoing mentorship on MentorCruise.
