That said, I'd encourage you to still review the candidate as you would any other. I try to give all folks the benefit of the doubt, even if I don't entirely agree with this particular practice. They may have some bright spots in the code you're actually able to check out. It's a great topic for conversation if you choose to have a call with them as well.
That said, as a bootcamp grad myself, it personally irks me when I see other bootcamp grads try and misrepresent their bootcamp projects as work experience. I know that some bootcamps direct their students to do exactly this, but that doesn't make it okay.
I guess it works though. I feel like I'm always the one pointing out to our recruiting team that certain jobs on a resume are not actually jobs. If someone else is doing the tech screen, they may just make it through.
I love when candidates are up front about things like this, seeing a cover letter thats akin to "Hey, I'm just getting my started in this industry. I graduated <bootcamp-x>, I would love to get some feedback on the work I did on <project-x>."
I have no degrees myself, very much identify with the self-learning journey.
No mention of the CodeSmith bootcamp, although I had deduced they were probably a bootcamp grad due to their degree in a separate field.
Also fishy is that one of their experiences just lists "stealth startup" as the company name, now I'm wondering if that role existed at all. Thanks for the heads up here.