Careerfoundry and Designlab courses — The Job guarantee explained!

An overview of Job guarantee of the UX/UI design course from an analysis of the Careerfoundry and DesignLab job guarantee requirements.

Summary of content

• Introduction at bootcamp with Job guarantee
• What a job guarantee is and what is not?
• What are the most common policy requirements?
• Requirements you need to verify before starting the course
• Requirements you need to meet during the course
• Requirements that you need to meet after the course during the job hunting process!
• Overview of the job guarantee requirements
• Can I seriously get my money back?
• What is the real advantage of doing a course with a job guarantee?
• Pro and Cons

Introduction at Bootcamp with Job guarantee

As online courses are becoming more popular, there is an increase of courses that distinguish themselves by offering a Job guarantee to their students. As I recently completed one of these courses, the UX design course with Careerfoundry (check it here for my full review), I would like to share more in detail what the job guarantee actually is and how it works, as I know this is an essential point for who is taking in consideration to enrol in one of those courses.

What I am going to describe is what I learned from my personal experience about the job guarantee with the course with Careerfoundry(click here to get a 5% discount); however, from some research on other UX design courses as DesignLab, for example, I noticed that the main principles and rules are pretty similar for most of those courses, so with this article, I will try to give an overview of which are those main principles by analysing the job requirements of the UX design course of Careerfoundry and DesignLab.

What a job guarantee is and what is not?

First of all, let’s make it clear what the job guarantee is and what is not! Many people get confused with the idea that the term “job guarantee” means that the school will provide you with a job after the course, which is not how it works. Job guarantee means that the school under determinated requirements is willing to pay back the full price of the course if the students after the course’s completion don’t end up having a job in the field of study within a limited time. In practice, this means that the students are still the ones that have to apply and research for the job; however, those schools usually implement a program in supporting the students in this process.

What are the most common Job guarantee requirements?

Let’s then take a closer look at some of the most relevant requirements that apply when some students may apply for the job guarantee.

Be aware that this is not an exhaustive and accurate list of the job guarantee requirements from Careerfoundry and Designlab. Still, I just want to give a general overview of the most relevant requirements to help students understand them more easily. I invite anyone interested in double-checking the term and conditions from their chosen school to ensure the accuracy of their current job guarantee requirements before taking any decision (Check the complete terms and conditions here for Careerfoundry and here for Designlab).

For simplicity, I thought it would be easier for potential students to divide the job guarantee requirements into:

• Requirements you need to verify before starting the course
• Requirements you need to meet during the course
• Requirements that you need to meet after the course during the job hunting process!

Requirements you need to verify before starting the course.

Those are requirements that anyone should check in advance if they can meet them or not. Some of the most relevant include: if the students will be able to meet the language requirements if the location requirement of the school covers the location where they are planning to apply for a job and if the students have a regular work permit for that same location.

For example, Careerfoundry has a language requirement for the students to be fluent in English and in the local language of the location in which the user is applying for the job. Students must be living or willing to relocate to a city with a population of at least 200'000 from the specific countries that Careerfoundry cover under their job guarantee.

DesignLab, instead, requires the students to be living within 90 minutes commuting distance from the city where the student is looking for work, which must be a city included in their list of eligible cities.

Requirements you need to meet during the course.

Those are pretty much all the standard requirements that students need to meet to complete the course regularly.

For Careerfoundry, those include completing the course within the ten-month time limit and completing successfully 100% of the program with all achievements approved by the mentor.

For DesignLab, those include: Do not fall behind more than 40 hours at any point, complete 100% of required weekly reading and project completed and mentor approved, must attend all the mentor and group critics sessions, must submit the final portfolio for panel review no later than four weeks after your official estimate completion date, and pass portfolio review within eight weeks of the first submission.

Requirements that you need to meet during the job hunting process once the course is completed.

Those are the requirements more specific for the job guarantee, where the school wants to make sure the students are giving their best to find a job. Once students complete the course, both Careerfoundry and DesignLab, in order to satisfy the job guarantee requirements, have a program to support the students in the job-hunting process that needs to be completed.

Careerfoundry starts this with a job preparation course that needs to be completed within 30 days after the primary course completion; this includes creating and getting approved a CV, a cover letter, and a personal profile on some relevant job boards websites. Once completed this job preparation course, students must keep regular updates and calls with the career specialist and follow its advice.

The DesignLab process is quite similar, with the students that must set up a job hunting board, share it with their Career Coach and keep it weekly updated. The students need to complete all weekly assigned work and attend all the 24 weekly Career service sessions.

In this stage of job hunting, both Careerfoundry and DesignLab required the students to apply to at least five relevant jobs each week and keep track of all jobs application with screenshot and all appropriate documentation about it. During this time, DesignLab also requires students to attend a minimum of 2 relevant networking events in one of your target job hunting cities each month.

Another General job guarantee requirement that is better to not forget for who is going to apply for the job guarantee is that students must explicitly request the repayment in written form; within 30 days after the lapse of the job search period for Careerfoundry, and within nine months after starting Career Services for DesignLab.

Overview of the job guarantee requirements

In substance, once a student verify the requirements that are needed to be verified before starting the course and can complete the course in the expected time, and following the regular process of the course, the main focus on the job guarantee requirements is based on the job-hunting process where the students have to work with a career specialist, and this is probably the part where students need to be more aware in details of each requirement in order to not miss it out. A big part of this is about organising and collecting all the documents to prove that all the requirements have been met. With Careerfoundry, this meant creating a document with all the information related to the job applications, screenshots of the job ads, a copy of the CVs and cover letters for each specific job application and any email communication related to those job applications. This actually results to be a pretty time-consuming work to do in addition to the job-hunting process itself, but it is the only way to prove to the school that the students are putting their best effort to find a job.

Can I seriously get my money back?

Some of the most common questions from new students are if I cannot find a job, will I seriously get my money back? The answer, of course, is yes, but just if students will be able to satisfy and prove that they fulfil all the job guarantee requirements, this is why students must be well aware since the beginning of which are those requirements and will pay lots of attention at all the details as the schools are going to be quite strict about this requirements.

What is the real advantage of doing a course with a job guarantee?

I admit that the job guarantee was one of the main reasons that convinced me to choose the Ux design course with Careerfoundry. This is because it gave me the feeling that I would always have a final winning situation in the end, with either ending up having a job or having done the course for free. Besides being an effective and powerful marketing strategy from the schools, I think the job guarantee is also a great advantage for students who want to enrol in this type of course with the final goal to land a new job. However, from my personal experience, I feel the real purpose and advantage of doing a course with the job guarantee are to give to the students the confidence they are working in the right direction following a solid method that will provide them with the right skills and knowledge to get started to work in the field. Overall this gives a strong motivation and focuses on working till the end of the course. In conclusion, I would suggest students to consider the job guarantee more as a guarantee of the quality of the course, more than a way to have an exit strategy in case they won’t find a job.

Pro

• Give students more confidence and motivation
• If you satisfy all the job guarantee requirements, you can ask for a full refund of your money
• You have a career advisor to guide you in the job-hunting process

Cons

• Job guarantee requirements have strict policies that need to be met.
• Satisfaction with the job guarantee requirements can be very time-consuming.
• Some students may become more worried about meeting the job guarantee requirements more than finding a job.

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