I'm not sure where to even begin with my experience with Revature. Something about the whole experience was ... well, very strange.
It started when a recruiter from the company contacted me via email and telephone several times. The recruiter told me the company had found me from my school's employer web site and encouraged me for an entry-level Java developer position.
I was a little intrigued by the company because of the salary and benefits they supposedly offer, as well as how persistent the recruiter was in contacting me. The times when I talked to the recruiter, this person made it seem like me getting hired by the company was all but done deal. The recruiter asked me how quickly I could come to Virginia to start on one of their bootcamps, how quickly I could sign with the company, and had I ever used Verisign to sign documents.
All the while, something seemed off. The recruiter never asked for a copy of my current resume or any questions about the tech company I currently work for. I wondered why. I figured they'd ask me during the interview, which was to be over webcam.
The recruiter emailed me an interview preparation guide and told me "to study hard." The study guide appeared to me information that the company had copy and pasted from the Internet without much, if any, attribution about object-oriented programming, SQL, and software design. I studied for hours and had the definitions memorized before the interview.
Then the interview happened. From the start, the interviewer was standoffish, rude, and condescending. He asked me questions from the study guide and, once it became clear that I was answering the questions from the guide, he started asking questions that were not on the guide. Which I didn't mind, but it seemed as if he was trying on purpose to find a question or questions that would stump me. What made matters worse was the interviewer did not seem to care about answers at all -- my answer didn't matter. He did not ask about my current employment or what I was currently doing in school. During when I was talking, he talked to other people in the room, drank liquid, and didn't seem to be listening. It was very unprofessional. And he never asked me about SQL, which was a considerable chunk of the study guide.
After the interview was over, I scratched my head. Later, I got an email from the company saying that it was moving forward with other candidates, BUT it MIGHT hire me in the future if I did two online projects with the company. Later the recruiter said I would only have to do one online project (instead of two). Now I wonder if working on the online project means doing free work for Revature while it charges paying clients for the work. I also wonder if the interview's job is to psyche out interviewees so they feel like they know nothing and the only way they get any experience in the industry is to work for free for Revature.
Leaving aside the issue of how poorly I was treated during the interview, it is extremely insulting for a tech company to solicit people for paid work on the basis of free work. This is especially true when the person who the company is asking to do free work is already getting paid in the industry full-time.
Revature should be very careful how it treats candidates who it contacts first. Word travels very fast on the Internet.