Getting the Job you Want Without a Degree

In all the time that I have been working in the IT industry, I have struggled to get noticed at companies that have the jobs I really wanted, and it’s all because I have no college degree.

Most larger employers have some sort of Candidate Information System, or CIS, that they turn to when looking for people to hire. They advertise an available job, take in all the applications and resumes, put them in the CIS system, then have it produce a list of the top ten candidates. The problem with these systems is that they filter out candidates based on a set of criteria that HR or the hiring manager specify. This usually includes having a college degree as one of the filter items…..after all, if someone doesn’t have a college degree, then there is no way they could be smart enough to do the job, right?

The best compliment I have ever received was “Where did you get your Doctorate?” People are shocked when I tell them I don’t even have a Bachelor’s degree. Then they question how I can know so much and not be educated?!? I then have to “school” them that having a degree does not necessarily mean educated. The reverse is also true — just because someone does not have a degree, does not mean they aren’t educated. In my own case, I have Always Been Learning (ABL), and can pick up a book and read as well as anyone. I was never able to afford college. I could not get any loans, as my parents would not give out their tax returns. Same story for grants. I was programming PC computers in High School, and earned enough money to go to college for a few years, but after awhile, I was making more money then college grads were, so I decided I didn’t really need the degree. Fast forward 20 years, and people were filtering out non-grads like myself from their searches.

So how do you get a job without that “required” degree? Here are some tips and tricks that I have used in the past to secure that wonderful job.

1. It’s about who you know Ever job that I have been offered over the past 15 years came about because someone at the target company already knew me and knew what I was capable of. Cultivate your contacts, and if you have a target company you want to work for, keep in touch with folks you know there to find out what is going on inside, and to keep you in there minds as someone that might be a good person to hire. LinkedIn is your friend!
2. ABL – Always Be Learning If you see jobs that require a technical skill that you don’t currently have, then go learn them! Now a days there are tons of online learning websites where you can take courses and get “certificates” on new and up coming technologies. Post those courses up on your LinkedIn profile to show people you have the skill. I recently posted my training cert for GOLANG (or the GO programming language as you may know it), and have received a number of messages from recruiters looking for people with experience in that programming language.
3. Apply for those jobs that ‘Require’ a College Degree anyway Don’t be put off by jobs that require a college degree. If you know you can do the work, then apply and focus on that. Sometimes employers overlook or miss that part of your application. I once got a job offer that I took, and about two months after I started HR came to me and asked me about where I got my college degree, as that part was missing in their system. I told them I didn’t have one. They were a bit upset and were ready to fire me for “lying on my application”, but I pointed out that I never filled in the Education part of the application, and therefor didn’t lie. It also helped that my boss at the time was very happy with my performance, as I was solving problems that his other workers with degrees were seeming not able to solve.
4. Apply to those Companies that don’t care about Degrees More and more companies these days are starting to realize that having a degree is not an end-all be-all of someone that will be successful. Companies like Google, IBM, and Apple don’t make a degree a required part of the hiring process….they just look for something that would indicate you can do the job. Glassdoor posted an article about companies like these.
5. Focus on your Successes, not your lack of Education If you make it to the interview process, focus your interviewers on your successes and past performance, and minimize your lack of a degree. If you can show people examples of past performances and how you were doing work that other college graduates were doing, then most folks will overlook your education.
6. Specialize I was lucky in that I got a chance to get into Cellular Messaging as a Systems Engineer. I was able to pickup very quickly how SMS worked, and how to troubleshoot the systems that provided Text Messaging to AT&T subscribers. There are not a lot of people out there that know all that. That kind of experience is hard to come by, and when employers are looking for folks with that specialized skill set, they are more likely to overlook any lack of a college degree. The Cloud world these days provide for many opportunities for people to specialize in the various aspects of both Public and Private Cloud

Above all, you have to have faith in yourself that you can, in fact, DO the job! If you lack confidence about being able to do a job, the interview folks will pick up on that. Learn all you can about your target company. Learn what they are trying to achieve, and how you can help them get there. Make it an easy decision for the hiring manager that YOU are the one for the position!