Keesha A.

I am regretting attending Careerist instead of another boot camp. The program guarantees that one can break into tech with no prior sales or tech experience needed. Moreover, it guarantees 1:1 mentorship, specifically to improve my resume and practice mock job interviews. As of today, even after Graduation on March 3rd, these guarantees have not been delivered.

I have been assigned to Aigerim Yerzhan as my mentor. In attempting to schedule a meeting with this mentor, I noticed that her availability will be either between the hours of 12 am-5 am or 10 pm - 11:30 pm CST. These hours are not conducive to my schedule. Nevertheless, I went ahead and scheduled an initial meeting on February 3,2023, to discuss Careerist and what I can expect with mentorship. During our meeting, I asked very specific questions about how we will proceed, and how my resume should be curtailed for the Sales Engineering position, and Aigerism could not answer the questions. All she kept communicating to me is to send her my resume and never addressed my concerns. At the conclusion of our call, I did not feel confident that she could adequately assist me because she never answered my questions. On your website, it states that Careerist has qualified mentors. My experience with Aigerim does not prove that she is a qualified mentor.

Then, on March 7, I had a demo + interview session with Farhan Awan. During this session, he stated that I did a bad job with my demo. He did not give me any constructive criticism as to how I can improve my demo. Additionally, during the interview portion of the session, he was critical of my answers; his body language was coming across as negative to me with Farhan constantly shaking his head from side to side and rolling his eyes, indicating disagreement or disapproval. He offered very minimal tips for improving my interview techniques. At the end of our session, I left feeling less confident, not encouraged, and more so, I felt penalized and was put in a place of judgment for my responses. Before this demo session, we never received any practical hands-on training in the classroom to successfully prepare and complete a good demo and ace a tech industry interview. Once more, my experience with Farhan does not prove that he is a qualified mentor. I found Farhan rude, dismissive, and distressing.

I, now realize that the current structure and personnel of the Careerist Sales Engineering program is not the same as when Cyrus Harbin went through the Curriculum. He received hands-on interviews and demo practice in the classroom to successfully ace his interviews. That is how he was able to confidently pivot into tech, and that's why he recommends Careerist to his 100,000+ followers on social media. I feel that after my financial and time investment into Careerist, I have not acquired the adequate training and skills to become a Sales Engineer. I am left to seek other avenues and boot camps to learn how to demo, learn to interview successfully, learn how to optimize my LinkedIn and resume, and learn to effectively seek a Sales Engineering position.
I am highly disappointed with my financial investment and time in the Careerist program. Since starting this program, I have not received an adequate return on my investment. I have connected with other former students who encountered similar experiences to mine, and they have enrolled in other boot camps and as a result, now have jobs in the tech industry.

My hope that in the future is that Careerist will address these issues and really deliver on their training's guarantees. At this moment, I am asking for a full refund of my investment. The course lacks structure. The instructors pretty much read from the slides every night and do not prepare you adequately for the demo and job interview that you must pass in order to successfully pivot into tech. The Careerist program is a scam. The internship is a joke. It is just you calling potential students to get them to sign up for Careerist. During the internship, they do not train you with any technical skills to be a Sales Engineer or to do a successful demo presentation. There are so many students that I have spoken with that have graduated from Careerist, and have not found jobs as Sales Engineer. They, like myself, wish we could get our money back.