A Guide To Career Services At Lighthouse Labs

Let's be honest. Change can often be a long and complicated process. Often, we shy away from big decisions due to the safety and convenience of our current situation. And so we remain in uninspiring jobs mainly due to our fear of the unknown.. The good news is that with Career Services at Lighthouse Labs, you will not be alone on that journey to your dreams.

Many of us at Lighthouse Labs have taken a similar path to our dream careers and can relate to the challenges of making a career switch. We are also privileged to witness, over and again, the magic that happens when a person decides to pursue their dreams of a fulfilling career. This is why we provide lifetime career services to our students, to ensure that throughout your career, from getting that first tech job to negotiating your 2nd, 20th or 200th role in the industry, the Career Services team will always be on hand to help you navigate that journey.

But what is Career Services? And what does Career Services for Life mean? In this feature, we break it down in detail with the help of Lighthouse Labs' Cat Seier. As Manager of Career & Alumni Services at Lighthouse Labs, she is well suited to explain that secret ingredient in the Lighthouse Labs magic, and share insights into the Career Services team who work tirelessly behind the scenes to help our students achieve their dreams.

What is Career Services for Life?

Gaining the technical skills for a tech role is just one of the steps to launching an exciting new career in the industry. Another essential part of that equation is navigating the path from being tech-ready to landing your first job in your chosen field. You will have to hone your interviewing skills and prepare CVs highlighting your technical abilities and the transferable soft skills gained from your previous roles. You will have to learn to create, update and leverage LinkedIn in your job search and learn the skills and techniques necessary for navigating the often quite confusing job market.

What if you had a team of experts waiting on the sidelines to help you achieve all your career objectives for the rest of your life?

With Career Services at Lighthouse Labs, you'll gain lifetime access to a robust team of advisors and mentors dedicated to supporting you along your journey. The team's primary goal is to provide on-demand guidance throughout every stage of your career journey, for as long and as often as you need it.

Cat Seier explains the role of the Career Services Team "Job seeking is one of the most stressful things you’ll do in your life next to divorce, marriage and buying a home, and it can be so isolating. The biggest advantage of Career Services is you are not alone. We will walk beside you along your journey and teach you how to fish."

If that all seems a bit vague, here is a breakdown of what you can expect from the Career Services team at Lighthouse Labs:

What You Can Expect From Career Services:

• Career Coaching: The team will sit with you to explore your career aspirations and come up with the best plan to help you achieve them.
• Interview and Resume Prep: Every interview brings you a step closer to achieving your career goals. During your program, you will have plenty of opportunities to practice your presentation and interview skills to ensure you nail your elevator pitch each time. You will also have resume consultations to learn how to highlight your essential skills for maximum visibility.
• Employer Outreach and Matching Service: Do you have a particular job that has caught your eye? We will cold-call the employer on your behalf and make a case for hiring you. Or leave it to us, and the team will match you with an employer that aligns with your career goals and prepare you for success during the hiring process.
• Demo Day: At Demo Day, you will have the opportunity to present your final project to the broader Lighthouse Labs community. This will allow you to practice all that you’ve learned during your program and provide the chance to practice your presentation skills, a key asset in the tech industry.
• Post Program Workshops and Mentor hours: After Demo Day, you will begin a series of post Bootcamp workshops to discuss your career goals and work with your Career Service Adviser to devise a plan to achieve them.
• Career Services Support for life: That’s right, for life. Career Services will be there to support you throughout your entire career. That means no matter what year you graduated, whenever you feel like you need to change jobs or your career needs a boost, you will always be able to come back to talk with the team and get their help in achieving your new goals. In addition, you’ll also have access to all career resources for life, including the job resources site, Discord server and mentorship.

“At week 5 or 6, we get our students to start thinking about life after Bootcamp” Cat explains.

“By Week 7, we help them build a targeted resume. Week 9, we teach them how to prepare for interviews, and do 1 on 1 resume audits and career consultations. After Demo Day they are migrated to the alum Discord channel and attend the post-Bootcamp workshops after they begin working with the Career Services Advisors, who meet with them every two weeks for consultations and to check in on their progress. Simultaneously the employer partnerships managers are working with them to send out resumes to ideal employers. We also conduct mock interviews to help them prepare for the job interview process."

And for returning grads, "we sit down with them, listen to their stories and establish their new career objectives. We talk about job search strategies, what’s working and what needs to be tweaked. We do document reviews, resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles, teaching them how to highlight their skills and strengths. We discuss networking opportunities, and setup mock interviews, and then we help them with contract reviews and negotiation help when they get job offers".

Are you a returning LHL grad looking for guidance on your next big career move? You can reach the Career Services Team here.

The Career Services team is constantly making new employer connections, attending events, networking and building relationships with industry professionals. They analyze the market and look at hiring trends to ensure they have the best resources and tools to guide our students upon graduation.

"One of the coolest things about my job is we get to hear these wonderful stories about our students' past, and then we get to help them translate those stories into this new path. We had a grad who had a submarine and took our Data Science Bootcamp because she was collecting data at the bottom of the ocean and had to send it out to be analyzed. She took the Bootcamp because she wanted to do that analysis herself at the bottom of the ocean. We also had a grad who used to be an opera singer and, during the pandemic, had to pivot. Now they are working for a blockchain company. It's cool that we get to witness those stories and get to contribute to that journey."

Ready to begin your journey to a career in tech? Click the button below to visit our program page and see which of our programs is right for you!

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