Source: This article was originally published on CNBC.

Written by: Courtney Connley, CNBC Make It

These days, “learn to code” is the conventional wisdom doled out to anyone who’s been laid off or feels stalled professionally.

You’ll want to think carefully before pursuing something that’s being presented as a professional quick-fix.

Coding is great for some people. I have a nephew who was born doing calculus. He majored in comp science at college and now earns a six-figure salary at 24 years old. That kind of story is why boot camps are popping up everywhere and their classrooms are full.

There is a cold, hard truth you won’t often hear about boot camps: Most of them only teach the basics.

As a result, many graduates don’t leave boot camp with the knowledge they’d need to take on a high-paying engineering job. In fact, boot camp graduates often fall victim to a common pattern: Big companies hire boot camp coders in huge groups, fully expecting to lay off half of them.

Boot camps promise you a job paying $60 or $70k upon graduation, and they typically deliver. But they very rarely say that afterward, most big companies put you through their own in-house training programs, and for every hundred boot camp graduates hired, 50 are screened out after six months.

In a tight labor market, boot camp-trained coders shouldn’t worry—the odds they’ll get hired again are strong. But, reality suggests boot camp mainly makes sense under two circumstances:

1. You’re talented

An excellent reason to go to a coding boot camp is if you have an actual aptitude for coding. You have to have some skill to succeed. Before handing over your credit card, do yourself a favor and take one of the many online classes or tests to see if you have an aptitude for coding, which—hello!—is actually an inextricable prerequisite for a real dev career.

2. You’ve exhausted other options

The second circumstance that will lead you to coding school is if you’ve exhausted other professional avenues and lack a specific passion for any one career.

It happens. And when it does, again given this economy, serial $60k coding jobs are not just better than nothing, they’re a lot better. I get that.

Should you learn to code? I’m not saying the answer is no. It’s ‘maybe’—just make sure you face reality first.

Suzy Welch is the co-founder of the Jack Welch Management Institute and a noted business journalist, TV commentator, and public speaker. Through its online MBA program, the Jack Welch Management Institute transforms the lives of its students by providing them with the tools to become better leaders, build great teams, and help their organizations win.