from Hacker News

How do you get a job without a college degree?

by fffrad on 3/24/15, 4:07 AM with 4 comments

I understand that the experience you have is more important, but the problem is getting filtered out before you get the chance to talk to someone.

Some HR department filters out the resumes of degree-less candidates. How do you get pass this road block?

  • by anaskar on 3/24/15, 4:18 AM

    What kind of companies are you trying to work at? I totally feel your pain. In fact many ATS's (Applicant Tracking Systems) often bounce 50% of applications without a human even looking at the app.

    Hiring is hard on both sides. Many companies (understandably) need some way of filtering. That's why you shouldn't apply online or through job portals =)

    The CTO of Stripe talks here about how he built a great eng team: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zoq085zVhA

    you can see that most are referrals vs. in-bound leads, with other channels in between.

    What I'm getting at is that regardless of industry, you should do some of the following:

    - contribute to the field you're applying to in other ways. Write articles, do side projects, etc. This will build up your reputation and experience in ways that a company can substitute a degree for.

    - find people in the field and talk to them about what they're doing and what they'd find most helpful to study up on.

    - take an internship or research position

    - find people at LinkedIn who work at the company and meet up for coffee. Companies are definitely more amenable these days to hiring non-degree candidates but HR might be a bit behind the times. If you can demonstrate to hiring managers directly in-person that you're qualified, you can bypass a lot of these issues

    - apply to startups / smaller companies. it's more of a meritocracy for sure and HR tends to be more hands-on.

    good luck!

  • by smt88 on 3/24/15, 4:37 AM

    Even if you get hired somewhere, most companies will stop you from rising without a degree.

    Financially stability is important, but you should also look into getting some sort of degree.

  • by kjs3 on 3/24/15, 5:39 PM

    Build business networks and relationships that allow you to bypass the HR filter. A hiring manager or current employee who recommends HR talk to someone carries weight.