They are still curated with a manual selection process, in other words they are still recruiters. A true disruption would need to occur for every locale. Not everyone is looking to move to Silicon Valley and not only Silicon Valley companies are looking to hire.
Their business model is excellent:
1) Pay us $4k-$6k (let's say average $5k)
2) We'll train you for 4weeks or more
3) We'll find you jobs guaranteed with min salary $60k-$80k (whatever) or money back.
[Hidden] 4) Companies pay these guys "recruiting fee" between 10-20%
Some of the bootcamps were public about their recruiting fee but most of them are not (I'm not judging whether it's good or bad but merely pointing out the behind-the-public-business deals).
Let's say there are 20 potential candidates with 5 that will get the job (success rate 25%).
Income from Bootcamp = 5 x $5k = $25k
Income from Recruiting = 5 x $6k = $30k (10% of $60k)
Total Revenue = $55k for getting 5 people a job.
These are minimum numbers.
Loss occurs when either 0 gets hired or for certain threshold (I'm guessing pretty low).
These people are increasing the chance of replacement.
I'm starting at Catalyst in two days. It's like Dev Bootcamp, but more hours, more weeks and focused more on JavaScript. Actually, I found them right here on HN! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859844
The prep work for the course has been intense-- lots of jQuery, and some online classes on Coffeescript, Node.js and Backbone.js. And it's a fantastic feeling to be in! Getting accepted is honestly one of the happiest moments I've had since moving to SF last summer. It's also exactly the environment for reaching top goal from our HN 2013 goals thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4966522
If anyone wants to do blog interviews with me throughout the process, drop me a line.
We're based in Chicago, so that might help. ;)
I have thought about the recruiting business a lot in the past couple of years. I have a few ideas, but I do not have the time to implement them. They are not trivial and I am content with my day job.
I'm not really sure why this is so hard to see, the auction model is so weird, of course it'll take some time to figure out the kinks before "going global".
Seriously though, I don't see anything wrong with concentrating on a specific location and expanding, Facebook style. I'm not sure how well this would succeed in places like London, but I guess competition is good.