Pathrise Reviews 415

The mentors have expertise and know how to answer questions and can effectively help those fellows who have questions. However, in terms of teaching I think Pathrise should have a curriculum (data track) which helps the beginning fellows. The beginning fellows need to build up the foundation before can communicate with mentors or answer mock interview questions. The curriculum for SWE track is excellent. If this could be made for Data track, it would be great for this program at Pathrise.

Company is a joke. They talk you into a free trial, then they tell you they cannot accommodate your request. Didn’t bother to explain why. Very unprofessional. Meeting was rescheduled a few times. Their consultants are part time employees. Don’t waste your time with these jokers. They give you a guarantee they will find the right job for you and they brag about 95% job placement ratio, but they don't live up to their promises. They will treat you like garbage without any explanation until you write a review. Then they will be on you like white on rice demanding you give them more details about why you think they are not the best. Have some respect for yourself and don't bother talking to them because they won't even respond to your e-mails.

I originally joined Pathrise in 2022 and after a year of doing everything they wanted me to do it didn't land me any offers. I felt like I was ambitious and excited about the whole process and met with some great industry mentors to work on projects and boost my resume. However, that was the only good part of the program.
When it comes to finding you a job or placing you in a network/getting you referrals, this program fails miserably. I thought they would give me other advice besides to apply to 10+ jobs a week and send 10 cold emails, but thats all they ended up telling me to do. After about 6 months in the program I constantly had thoughts like "I can't believe I signed up to pay 10%+ of my salary for this". I did everything they asked from me and got 0 results. The applications they sent in for me also landed me 0 interviews so that was a total waste.
I rarely felt any of the mentors were invested in me, nor did they give me any good advice on what to do next week. I remember having a meeting where a mentor said "if you're asking me for what you should do to land a job in this field, I don't know what the answer to that is".
This whole process felt extremely discouraging, depressing, and a waste of time. I was looking forward to my end date in the program so that when I land a role I wouldn't be subject to their fess for a program I felt gave me no real value or direction. I was constantly asking them "what am I doing wrong", "what can I improve", "what should be my goals" and all they came back with was "apply for more roles and improve your linkdin". After 6+ month of doing this I was so discouraged that I asked them during on of the meetings, "I have a master's degree and some experience, but should I just give up and accept this isn't for me" and they came back with the standard answer of try applying for more roles.
This isn't a program I would recommend for anyone. Besides for the connection to industry mentors, this platform doesn't have much to offer. It is definitlely not worth the money they ask from you. Instead I would just ask a pro to rewrite your resume and optimize your linkdin more. It would be much cheaper, and after all that's all this program does for you anyways. I had some of the worst droughts of discouragement in my job hunt I've ever had when I was in the program, and I wouldn't want anyone else go through that.

Edit: I've recently talked to several other mentors and they told me the advice I was given was driving me down the wrong path. At this point the only thing I can say about Pathrise is that it at least got me started going in a certain direction. However, I now realize the advice I was given was not tailored to me to guide to my next job. I should have been targeting much more junior level roles/projects than what I was told. At this point, I think this program might have caused me more harm than good since it wasted close to a year of hard work and gave me delusional expectations. After getting advice from outside the program finally, I get why everyone I was getting mentored by kept giving me the same generic unfruitful answer: "Just keep applying eventually something will land". I wish this program hired mentors that were more invested in the outcome of the mentees rather than seeing these calls as a way to spew generic information or not tailoring their advice to fit the candidates current career trajectory,

I did technical interview and then they ghosted me. Heard nothing for a month. No one replies to my emails.

EDIT: although I got the reply below, I still have not received any other contact.

The mentors were amazing and able to give insights as they are currently working in the field you are interested in. I appreciate that I was able to schedule time with other mentors, interview prep, and even mindset coaches. Starting this I'm not going to lie I was a bit dubious as I wasn't able to find a lot of current info online but took the risk. It worked out in helping to keep me motivated and mentally on track with finding a new job. I will say the downside is that once placed there is a % of the salary that will be paid to pathrise, but I felt it was worth it. What is nice is once you've been accepted they will also help find jobs based on what you are looking for so that you are not alone in the job search. There are recommended jobs via the pipeline tracker, but your mentor will also share jobs with you as well. I will share that the UX does need some work.

Ben Hyland has been a fantastic career mentor. The other support mentors with whom I have connected have all been great people, too! Ben always has great advice, responds to my stupid questions, and is vert encouraging.

I had sessions regarding my resume, but I don’t think anyone focused enough on making it simple enough for the recruiter to understand and even myself to understand.

The Pathfinder team is much like the Avengers. They have so much knowledge and insights yet they are humble and kind. If you ever needed a team to help you find your next role, Pathfinder is it.

I contacted this company for help finding another job. I participated in their free trial for a week and that turned out to be an absolute waste of time. At the end of the trial, I was dismissed and was told they wouldn’t be helping me. They made me feel like a loser and like I wasn’t worth the time or the effort to help. For those reading this review, I seriously would look upon Pathrise as not worth YOUR time either.

During my 2-week trial, I had the opportunity to meet with established mentors in my chosen field who gave me so much clarity in a short period of time.

The recorded workshops and job search advice were also top-notch.

As a consultant looking to expand into tech, I was told traditional tech employment (e.g., product management) was probably not my best bet. With most of my mentors fearing for their jobs with major tech downsizing, I am at peace with this advice.

While the program was not a match for my goals, Pathrise would be a great fit for someone looking for a traditional career path in tech. I will still recommend the program for someone who knows this is the path they're walking.

The resources from the platform are very comprehensive. From how to optimize the CV, job application tricks, and reach out to employers by cold mail to negotiating the offer. Although that information is available on the Internet, here the platform compiles the most condensed and efficient materials that are ready to use.
The assigned career coach is very knowledgeable and supportive and engages the job-hunting process closely, giving great advice promptly when needed. This is especially important when you are confused during the process.
The HR and industry mentors are very helpful when preparing for the interview. It is great that the mentor helped to create a study plan to ace the interview. HR mentors help to sharpen the answer to behavior questions. Regular mocking interviews help a lot when there is an actual interview coming up suddenly with a tight hiring timeline.
The mindset coaching helps a lot when I feel depressed and low energy. The coaches are very professional in guiding me toward positive thinking and keeping the focus on preparing for my job search.
The pair programming is something I feel Pathrise can improve further. Since the participants join with different coding languages and skills, the discussions sometimes are not efficient as expected. It would be great if there can be 1 on 1 with a mentor for a coding mocking interview.

Industry mentors gave me a helpful and detailed guidance. My career mentor encouraged me all the time. My resume, LinkedIn profile, interview preparations improved so much. I learned a lot about job searching. I wanted to learn more but the offer came too early.

The mentors at Pathrise are great! They are vey focused on helping the fellows get the most out of the program. After months of applying for hundreds of jobs with very little success, the mentors helped me land a role in my chosen field, making more than I was making at my last job. Prior to Pathrise I had even tried paying for resume services with no significant improvement in my success rate. Pathrise helped me improve my resume, bolstered my confidence, and helped me with interview preparation and practice. After spending months feeling like I was spinning my wheels, I wish I had found Pathrise sooner! Overall it was a very positive experience, and I can't say enough about how wonderful the mentors were.

Career Mentor's are helpful and caring throughout your process working with Pathrise. I believe some of the language used in the contract aspect is a bit deceptive, guaranteeing placement and an increase in salary specifically. They really hype up how amazing them doing applications on your behalf can be, yet a large amount of the applications they do for you are not great fits as they outsource these applications to other companies (in and outside the US), in my experience their applications resulted in a 0.005% application to interview rate.

This company is very weird. I have 17 years of commercial experience in the IT industry as a UNIX / Linux system administrator, Java developer, project manager, and Cloud Site Reliability Engineer. I applied for the IT & Cybersecurity track. I was rejected. I asked for an explanation. I kid you not somebody responded with:

“Thank you for reaching out and sharing a copy of your resume. We greatly appreciate you applying to the Pathrise program. Unfortunately, after a second review of your application, it does not appear that we are able to move you forward in our program at this time. Happy to provide a more detailed explanation.

Since we are a career advancement service and unable to offer technical training or educational certifications, we do require either a recent, relevant degree or 1-year of full-time, current work experience for the track in which you are applying. Under our IT and Cybersecurity track, for example, we would require at least a year experience in a role such as Help Desk Support, System Administrator, Application Support, Cloud Engineer, Cybersecurity, IT Support, or similar.”

I thought having more than years of commercial experience being a UNIX / Linux system administrator and cloud site reliability engineer would be considered as “relevant” experience. Apparently not! I responded and asked for an explanation further only to be ghosted by this person at Pathrise. I was completely baffled, confounded, and dumbfounded by her explanation.

Update on April 29:

One of the founders Kevin had reached out to me directly and tried to address the problem. I am surprised that somebody from the company actually read the comment and reached out to address my concern. Although no plausible explanation was provided as to why my initial application was rejected, I appreciate that Kevin took steps to rectify the issue.

My Career Mentor (Janelle) and Industry mentors (Sarah, EJ, Chastity, Ilana, Peter, Bishoy) I had a chance to work with were very knowledgeable and compassionate people
I was initially very stressed about being unable to get to an interview stage and then faced hurdles of multiple rejections, jobs not matching my expectations,etc.

These mentors helped me stay positive through the job search journey and the industry mentors spent hours preparing me for potential interviews. phew ! :)

My situation was unique, but my mentor tried every possible method to make it work for me.

My Career Mentor Leah is what made this experience so rewarding. She was my biggest cheerleader and always gave me wonderful advice in what I should do in my job search.

The encouragement with realistic feedback from both mindset and industry mentors is helping with my anxiety and self-esteem in the job search. Thank you so much for this well-put together support system.

From the beginning, you can tell that they know what are they doing and everyone was so helpful.

I joined Pathrise in February 2023, and I love it so far. I like the career workshops with different mentors, but the 1-on-1 sessions with industry mentors are the best, shout out to Albert, Maurice and Dylan in design, who gave me so much valuable feedback on where and how to improve my case studies and portfolio. Also, career mentor Emily, she's great and very helpful!