
Ask HN: How can I make my lack of education less unappealing to employers? - non-entity
It&#x27;s been a huge trope for a while now about how you dont have to (or even in some cases shouldn&#x27;t) go to school and get a CS degree to be a developer, but I deeply regret not going for a number of reasons, but have mixed experiences personally with interviewing. I dont currently live in a tech hub (would like to work my way toward one) and while I&#x27;ve been able to find work, it&#x27;s always been difficult and I always feel like I come out underpaid from jumping in the first offer I get. I&#x27;ve interviewed at both tech companies (startups, etc.) and (mostly) non tech companies and my education eventually comes up in the interview as theres no section on my resume. I&#x27;ve had recruiters&#x2F;  interviewers visibly or audibly display disappointment when I mention I&#x27;m self taught and on occasion have had interviews or phone screens cut short because &quot;this position requires a degree&quot; despite &quot;sounding really good for the role&quot;. Just minutes before. I have a couple years of professional experience on top of contributions to large open source projects and years of hobbyist work, but its proven to still be an issue.<p>Is there anything I can do or any way I can market myself to beat this sort of issue?
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WheelsAtLarge
>>It's been a huge trope for a while now about how you dont have to (or even
in some cases shouldn't) go to school

I think there's been a huge misrepresentation of the value of a degree. You
hear this from people that have a degree already because a degree does not
seem to be life-changing once you have one. It's not but it gives you an edge.
At the very least a degree signals to an employer that you have some knowledge
and are able to work towards a goal. Any employer will hire someone with a
degree over someone that does not have one given similar resumes. Also,
employers will almost always require some kind of degree if they are filling a
management job. So if you ever plan to go above developer you'll mostly need a
degree.

Here's my advice: build a network of contacts that understand your skills.
Take the time to meet people in the industry. You'll need to find a way to do
that.

\- Try meetups

-take classes where you might find people that are professionals and hire people.

\- Become friends with the HR people of the place where you want to work.

\- Find bars where these people might meet

Additionally, work on your education. At the very least get a certificate that
is given by a recognizable and respected school

Please don't take the, "no degree needed" advice. It's wrong no matter how old
you are.

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rossdavidh
First, that's really unfair, and I sympathize. But, that's not what you're
looking for, so on to the advice.

Second, if you can get past HR, you have a better shot. That is, if the person
who will be your eventual supervisor has met you, they will often tell HR to
go ahead and send you in for an interview. The HR (or recruiter) doesn't have
the authority (or knowledge) to do that, but they will if the person they're
headhunting for says to (typically).

This is hard, but going to programmer meetups and such can sometimes help, as
does emailing the tech lead or supervisor directly whenever you can find that
out.

~~~
rossdavidh
p.s. a CS degree, in particular, is certainly unnecessary, so if you have an
easy way to get a non-CS degree (e.g. a history or music major that you didn't
quite finish), it might be worth doing that. But, definitely, there is a
(wrong-headed) class bias about having a degree of some kind. It's not
undefeatable, though, if you get past the people who are the usual
gatekeepers.

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davismwfl
Degrees are not useless, but they definitely aren't worth the weight some
people place on them either. In your case what is hurting is the lack of
experience tied with the lack of a degree. If you had a degree with 2 years
you'd have little issues assuming you can get through the interview process.
But without a degree and with only a couple years experience it is much harder
to get past a lot of the gate keepers.

If you really want to work at a place that "requires" a degree or enough
experience to offset it you'll need to find some smaller businesses, or even
some of the larger enterprises where they will interview you as a person and
not worry so much about the piece of paper you don't have. This will let you
get your 5-6 years of experience that will mainly offset the lack of a degree.
Also, for your resume you'd likely do better with a functional resume with
projects/accomplishments on it, rather than a chronological resume. The
functional will let you highlight more details about your open source and
hobby work. Chronological will show your relative lack of experience just by
the dates shown, and generally makes it harder to show all the relevant stuff
you have done since you are trying to summarize a job position instead of
talking about different projects/problems you have solved.

Just a personal note and from my own experience. I have over 20 years in the
industry and I do not have a CS degree and I do not list my formal education
on my resume as it is irrelevant for what I do (generally). When I have
applied for positions in the past I'd use their response about a degree as a
good filter about the company. Because if they are calling me to talk but then
tell me that without a degree that I am not worth chatting with then I just
found a company to avoid. I say this because intelligent people want to
associate themselves with other intelligent people, and a degree does not make
someone intelligent. A degree may help to increase someones intelligence, but
it more so just proves you can endure a level of memorization for a few years
to pass some exams, not that you are intelligent or even competent to do the
job. Personally, I prefer to work and associate with people who are
intelligent because they have a thirst, desire and hunger for information and
learning, then I do someone who uses a degree or a specific school as a filter
to whether another human is intelligent or worthy. This is the reason I do not
let my teams use the lack of a degree or where a degree is attained to
influence whether we interview someone, the only things we look at are the
resume & cover letter and if we like what we see we interview the person.

