Ask Slashdot: Getting a Tech Job With Skills But No Formal Degree? 266
fmatthew5876 writes "I have a friend who graduated with a degree in philosophy and sociology. He has been spending a lot of his spare time for the last couple years learning system administration and web development. He has set up web servers, database servers, web proxies and more. He has taught himself PHP, MySQL, and how to use Linux and openBSD without any formal education. I believe that if given the chance with an entry level position somewhere and a good mentor he could really be a great Unix admin, but the problem is that he doesn't have a degree in computer science or any related field. He is doing stuff now that a lot of people I graduated with (I was a CS major) could not do when they had a bachelor's degree. Does Slashdot have any advice on what my friend could do to build up his resume and find a job? I know a lot of people think certifications are pretty useless or even harmful, but in his case do you think it would be a good idea?"
Whatever -- Smarts and Work Ethic Come First (Score:5, Informative)
I barely graduated high school and I hold a high level IT position.
Key plan: don't lie about your college degree!
Re:Whatever -- Smarts and Work Ethic Come First (Score:5, Insightful)
Same here. Worked hard and cheap for a while, then worked hard and for a lot of money once I had the street cred.
Re:Whatever -- Smarts and Work Ethic Come First (Score:5, Interesting)
Same here; art school drop out (was having too much fun playing with computers and then making money freelancing repairs). The first actual in was meeting a guy at a wake and talking computers. He said his team at Honeywell needed desktop support and that go me into the door. From there, writing documentation (learning systems/processes), some classes and certs and now am admining HPC clusters. My coworkers are mostly CS/EE degree holders, all the way up to PhD but turns out most of the actual job requirements are still job related knowledge (be able to learn quickly), basic problem solving skills, able to communicate clearly and straight forward and having decent people skills.
Oh yeah, in last two years, have started picking up people at the help desk and training up support personnel. Some of these folks have moved into our department as well. After our example, other teams are also looking at help desk as a potential talent pool. Used to be the only way out was up the desktop support ladder but that's changing. May want to look at help desk work and ask what their career options are.
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Me four! We exist.
Re:Whatever -- Smarts and Work Ethic Come First (Score:5, Interesting)
Same as the GP, I didn't finished highschool. Have no degree at all. Started small and now make a bundle (and hire CS degree holders to do the monkey work I don't want to do, 'cause honestly... they suck...).
Experience trumps paper.
Re:Whatever -- Smarts and Work Ethic Come First (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a HS dropout too. Learned computer programming at Radio Shack University on the TRS-80, worked fixing radio stations, produced telemarketing devices made out of C64s, got hired by an ISP in '96 since I was taking care of the local modems anyway. 2001 I was a Sr. network engineer at Amazon, Now own my own company providing technical services (what ever interests me.)
People would ask me what they needed to do to get into tech. My reply was, "Be obsessed with it." Don't do it for the money, do it because that's what you have to do.
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Me too, the hard part for your friend is to get past the guys at human resources, after that, it will be easier for him to go up, specially if your managers are not sociopaths.
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Me too, the hard part for your friend is to get past the guys at human resources, after that, it will be easier for him to go up, specially if your managers are not sociopaths.
Just remember - the guys in HR are trying to avoid making a bad decision, and are going to be seriously risk averse. So if you come in claiming to know how to do things, they'll just ignore you if you don't have that degree. On the other hand, if you come in and explain to them a lot of the things that you HAVE done, they'll feel (slightly) better knowing that you're experienced. Get some good recommendations behind you on work habits, dress well ... and you *might* get to the next round of interviews wi
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I barely graduated high school and I hold a high level IT position.
Key plan: don't lie about your college degree!
Theatre major here. I now work as Chief Technologist for a thinktank. The key in the early days is learning harder than the rest. For my first four years, I read about 1000 pages of technical literature a month on average and spent about 4 non-work hours a day playing with tech stuff. That's slowed down somewhat, but even after 20 years in the field, reading about and playing with new tech is not optional.
Oh, and loving it helps, too. Here I am on holiday in Bali and I can't stay away from geek stuff. I d
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The key is that you need to be a good sales person, and you also need to have realistic expectations. The first five years in a new field are the hardest. If your friend can writ
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1) have a degree
2) have experience
3) have certifications
4) do something so interesting that they have to notice you.
If he can't do one of the above then honestly it is all a crapshoot after that.
Personally I don't have a degree, I have some certifications unrelated to my position. But I maintain a personal blog where I document interesting technical problems. Which I sel
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I barely graduated high school and I hold a high level IT position.
Key plan: don't lie about your college degree!
Unless you like being the ceo of a large tech company....
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I barely graduated high school and I hold a high level IT position.
Key plan: don't lie about your college degree!
Unless you like being the ceo of a large tech company....
Yeah, because that worked out so well for him.
Re:Whatever -- Smarts and Work Ethic Come First (Score:5, Informative)
I barely graduated high school and I hold a high level IT position.
Key plan: don't lie about your college degree!
I didn't finish my degree and I'm an Engineer at a medical device company. The VP of R & D here says "Your degree will get you your first job out of school. It won't get you your second." Point is, if your friend has the skills and can demonstrate them, the lack of a degree shouldn't be a factor at most places. What he needs is a foot in the door; persistence enough to get face time, the ability to communicate/demonstrate his skill set, and a good credible reference. Maybe that's you?
All these stories come back to the same thing - once you're working, it's easy (ish) to find another job in the same field. Getting that first job is the problem - so start networking. Do some volunteer work. In your situation, you pretty much have to get into a position (in life) where someone will hire you based on your knowledge ... and they usually do that by knowing YOU.
So find something sort of tech-y, get to know a bunch of people, do a bunch of volunteer work, and make sure that everyone you know moderately well knows that you're looking for work. It'll get you the job, if you're not completed a-social. Don't complain that "Oh, I'm not a social person, but I have tech skills". Well, if that's the case, get a degree in Comp. Sci and be quiet. Otherwise, you'll have to get "in" using your soft skills.
CS is not IT (Score:3, Insightful)
CS is not IT
Re:CS is not IT (Score:5, Informative)
because CS is about science and doing actual science. Developing new hash functions if you want a relevant example for todays news. Being a programmer is one thing in the toolkit of being a scientist, it's not the entirety of it.
Different schools have different emphasis though, but some places, where CS grew out of math departments it's much more about things like complexity theory, formal theory of languages and theory of computation sort of stuff than learning to write code.
For places where CS grew out of physics departments it can be much more hardware based, (Wilfred Laurier, the closest school to waterloo is a mostly hardware based CS programme, where waterloo is much more theoretical), or software, depending on what sorts of problems the people who created the department wanted solved, and how much money they could get to start the department.
Lots of CS grads, probably most of them, are not coders. They're scientists, some of whom can write code, and some of whom are much more about problems that can be solved with computers, and how efficiently that can be solved. Teaching people to code in a particular language is relatively easy if they have the math skills. Teaching them the maths skills is hard. Lots of them can't even replace a video card on their own, which seems kind of sad, but that's the same as an electrical engineer is not an electrician. They are related fields, but one is not entirely inclusive of the other.
CS *is not IT*. As part of doing CS you may have to learn to do some IT, but IT isn't programming necessarily either. A 5 year old can get a LAMP or Windows IIS php mysql setup going. IT is about being familiar with how to use particular software packages someone else has written to support whatever your business is. Being a network programmer, and sometimes that's part of being a sys admin, is about writing tools to solve your own unique problems, but not at the level of the packages you can download usually. The CS students who wandered over to your information systems or information science or... whatever programme did so because they want to know how to write code, but they don't have to be hardcore coders to be computer scientists. It's certainly useful for some people, and at some schools being able to code well is definitely required, but that's not universal.
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computer science is an oxymoon. There is no science in computer science.
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One could reasonably argue that the field is actually information science, not computer science, or computing science. But it's definitely science. We're in a faculty of science, degree requirements mandate breadth in science (first year courses in core science courses), there's a depth requirement in mathematics (statistics, linear algebra and calculus which are all part of the toolkit of being a scientist), and algorithms is certainly a component of science.
It's a common theme to say it isn't science, a
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there's a depth requirement in mathematics (statistics, linear algebra and calculus which are all part of the toolkit of being a scientist), and algorithms is certainly a component of science.
That's your mistake right there. It would certainly be accurate to say that computer science closely related to math, even a branch of math if you like, but math isn't science. To use a car analogy, that would be like saying that someone who designs and builds wrenches is an auto mechanic.
The one requirement for something to be a science is the use of the scientific method. To fend off the inevitable reaction: this is in no way intended as an insult towards computer science or towards math. Not being a sc
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Right, and computer science *uses* math, and sometimes is math, just like physics uses math, and sometimes is math.
Computer science is science, to publish papers and be a professional computer scientist you have to do science, you can't just do math.
To use a car analogy. An engineer isn't an auto mechanic, but they have to understand what the auto mechanic can do, and occasionally may get their hands dirty like a mechanic. But there is a lot more to it than the part that is similar to an auto mechanic.
You
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Teaching people to code in a particular language is relatively easy if they have the math skills. Teaching them the maths skills is hard.
I partly agree with the sentiment about learning to code in a particular language, but the bit about math skills is nonsense. I've been making a good living from coding (and design, test, specification, etc.) for almost 35 years. I've never once had to use math more complicated than what I learned in high school trigonometry. The vast majority of code doesn't require anything more complicated than the basics of add, subtract, multiply and divide. I'm not saying math skills don't come into play in some progr
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If you're just a coder then you may as well have gone to community college, you're not doing science. Science is in the analysis. You can teach a scientist to be a coder relatively easily. You can't teach a coder to be a scientist relatively easily (insofar as one considers 1 year of school vs 4 as a huge barrier).
You can also employ someone who could be a scientist in a job that isn't science.
Learning the mechanics of a language isn't programming. It's theory of computation. That's much more a scienti
Re:CS is not IT (Score:5, Interesting)
If that's the case then the CS programme was doing a bad job. A bachelors in any science should prepare you to be a competent scientist with expertise in that field. In the same way an engineering degree should prepare you to be an engineer.
It's true that for someone who is a full time research scientist directing research you pretty much have to have a PhD these days. But that doesn't mean the work the BSc and MSc level people do isn't science. Coming out of a BSc you should be able to pick up a journal in an area you know something about and make sense of it enough to know how you could use that information and re-implement it if you have the resources.
Being able to create new material for the journal....not necessarily BSc level. That's more the defining features of an MSc or PhD (and there it's about rate, novelty, and quality).
Sure, for 3 years after a B.Eng you aren't technically a professional engineer, but you're doing engineering under supervision of someone who is. But that should be the same with a science degreee. You start out life as a junior scientist under the heavy supervision of someone else.
After a BSc there isn't very far to go up that is actually anything new. An MSc and PhD take a few (4-8) more courses than in a BSc, but all of that course work is something a BSc level person can step into. Doing 'research' is a very specific type of problem that needs to be solved, where you're trying to solve a problem that fits in a publication. That's what MSc and PhD people specifically (myself included) have to do, but we are very marginally better trained than a BSc level person. After the BSc it's more about what sort of problem you're trying to solve, and just how much time you are willing to allocate to the problem and how much risk you're willing to take on it.
I grant you that lots of CS programmes are bad at making scientists though. But that doesn't mean they have to be.
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If that's the case then the CS programme was doing a bad job. A bachelors in any science should prepare you to be a competent scientist with expertise in that field. In the same way an engineering degree should prepare you to be an engineer.
... and you can be an excellent scientist without specific skills in your toolbox. Like programming. You can't simply claim that your definition is correct, by the way. Real scientists develop hypotheses from theories ... your statement is nothing more than BS.
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You really don't need to be a programmer to be a computer scientist. We have 120 or so grad students and about 60 are PhD students. Of those maybe half are competent programmers. Most of them develop one algorithm, which they may or may not implement themselves, and then the analysis of how that algorithm will perform is what makes them scientists.
You definitely don't need to know programming to do chemistry, and you can dodge it and still be a physicist easily enough. And they're still scientists.
I'll
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If an expert system, an openGL based implicit 3dregrees of freedom equations solver, an A* chess game, a radiosity+multipath refraction aware ray-tracer, a numeric solver, and a symbolic algebra system that could preform derivation and reduction are considered code that actually does nothing, I would like to know what you did in your IS classes that is considered code that does something as I just listed the major practical works we had to implements in my CS Bachelor's degree?
Re:CS is not IT (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right. I did NOT do the same things you did in your CS classes. I'm STILL not doing any of that, and neither are many other people.
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Ooooh, Ooooh, Ooooh! Don't forget making endless XSL Templates for e-commerce sites... because all the interesting web stuff happened over a decade ago, and now most folks spend their waking hour polishing turds. Actually there's a ton of interesting stuff, going on, you just need to hunt down someone who's doing it and sit at their front door until the let you in or call the police. Worked for a lot of people I know.
Oh and someone will be happy to pay really good money to polish turds, problem is they forg
Some of us design and develop new things (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to burst the bubble of any CS students ... We all sit in the same cubicles churning through millions of lines of legacy Java code, filling in our change requests and putting cover sheets on TPS reports.
No, we do not all do that. Some of us went into CS because we actually had an inherent interesting in coding, not because a parent or guidance councilor told us it was a good career path. Because we had an inherent interest in building things. An inherent curiosity regarding puzzles, practical or academic. We appreciated the theory presented in many classes because it better prepared us to design new things. And many of us matching the preceding sit in our cubes designing and developing new things, not main
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I could not agree more with your post ! so I will repeat that fundamental part :
Some of us went into CS because we actually had an inherent interesting in coding, not because a parent or guidance councilor told us it was a good career path.
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I could not agree more with your post ! so I will repeat that fundamental part :
Some of us went into CS because we actually had an inherent interesting in coding, not because a parent or guidance councilor told us it was a good career path.
But that doesn't change the grandparent poster's point that when most CS students look for a paying job, they don't end up writing fun code, they end up writing codes to meet the business analyst's spec. No bonus points are given for innovative code, doing things the most boring (but easily maintained) way possible is what's called for.
Sure, there are lots of jobs out there doing "fun" things, but there are many more doing the boring things the grandparent poster mentioned.
Your motivations for entering the
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I am employed to do custom visual components, software architecture, developers supports and mentoring, developing developers tools, fixing thurd party library, automating systems and performing root cause analysis. I consider that I use a good part of my CS education. Sure I don't do opengl anymore, but it is not a lack opportunity, it is just that those jobs sucks but those jobs are plentiful (in Canada anyway) and the almost all require deep CS knowledge.
But you are right, I you were not part of the gam
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While you're doing that, others of us have none of those issues.
For instance, in my case I just looked around a little, and despite being a fresh grad school dropout I landed a position at a software development shop that provides offices for everyone but the part-timers (about 3/4 of which are window offices with a good view of the surrounding, undeveloped terrain), is made up of about 90% developers and 10% other, seeks out new clients who have challenging problems to take on, refuses work if it simply is
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CS is not IT
"He is doing stuff now that a lot of people I graduated with (I was a CS major) could not do when they had a bachelor's degree" When I was in the IS program, the CS students would come over from the math building and take our courses so they could learn to write code that actually does something.
Like learn how to program in COBOL? ;-) At my university the CS department had classes that used C, FORTRAN, Pascal, Lisp ... but no COBOL. One had to go take a class in the IS department for that. We laughed at the two guys who did that. They laughed years later when the Y2K updates were underway and they were charging outrageous fees.
Joking aside, you are entirely correct that CS is designed to be the more theoretical degree program. For example you will study the theory and design of operating systems
Volunteer and/or do an Internship (Score:5, Insightful)
I have had friends do this (and myself to a degree) and it can open doors you didn't know you had. Also join some local user groups (like I joined my local VMware User Group) and made a lot of good contacts, one even got me a job when I just got RIF.
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Exactly. That's how I got a job at an ISP. I offered to take care of the local modem pool since I was tired of ring-no-answers. They gave me a key to the POP and I would go kick the modems when they misbehaved. About 6 months later they offered me a job in Seattle taking care of all the modems and T1 lines. Four years later I was a Sr. Network Engineer at Amazon. I'm a high school drop out with no further schooling.
Nah (Score:5, Interesting)
Certs are good for non-IT degree folks. Heck, certs are good for everyone. Yes, there are people running around with certs that cannot problem solve their way out of a cardboard box while holding a knife. But mostly, they make you look better. Definitely go for them.
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Nah (Score:4, Funny)
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I would go for a 2-year technician degree since it sounds that's the level he's currently at. Overload with credits and do summer classes, and he'll probably finished in 1.3 years. You need the "sheepskin" to get past the HR people.
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Suggestion (Score:2)
See if the college's placement/career department can find an internship for him. Or perhaps one of your CS professors.
Tech Support position is usually the best way... (Score:2)
...if you don't have a formal degree.
As a matter of fact, software companies will often have those with degrees who are fresh out of school work in tech support for at least 6 months. Then move them up when a slot opens or they show that they are capable.
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Tech support? Why don't you suggest this guy suicides right away?!
I've been continuously employed in a variety of IT roles (Sysadmin, project manager, network manager, InfoSec among others) since '92. I don't have a degree of any kind and while that's kept me from interviewing for a few jobs, it hasn't really negatively affected my career. Certs and degrees are nice, but there's no substitute for experience.
That's why I usually recommend getting a tech support/help desk job to those trying to break into IT (if you want to be as developer, tester is a good starting place
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I think that was the most poorly written post I've ever done on /. My apologies.
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It wasn't too bad overall. That last line was unnecessary, though.
Find a book and a project to do (Score:3)
And complete it, for someone. A church, or a nonprofit would be good. Another alternative would be to build a useful application and add it to SourceForge. Nothing spices up a resume like free downloadable open software that you've written, assuming it's well tested.
Portfolio (Score:5, Insightful)
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GO to user groups (Score:5, Insightful)
make friends and contacts.
And if you already have a degree:
Go to user groups,
make friends and contacts.
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So if you want a job, you want to be the guy that's being recommended, and that comes from knowing the right people, not having the right degree. However, it's no mistake that in the process of getting the right degree you meet the rig
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Comp Sci != IT (Score:4, Insightful)
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Get through the door and have something to demo (Score:2)
Have something you can demo. A personal project that you put serious time into. Have it well presented (a good website or document that highlights what you are trying to show off).
That's the easy part. The hard part is getting in the door. Focus on smaller companies as most big ones will just bin your resume. Go in there and apply in person. Easy to delete a document when you see there is no degree. If you make the effort and go in there in person, usually they'll at least talk to you.
The fact that he has _
There are exceptions (Score:2)
I have been lucky. With only high school I have work all over the world doing software development since the early 1980's. I have worked as a consultant for mega corps with a staff of PhD's and invented some world changing algorithms ( which of course the mega corps patented ).
If you are good enough, or have a perspective that is outside the box and produce results, the degree doesn't matter.
It's just harder. Harder to get in the door to present yourself. Harder to win acceptance of your work. Harder in jus
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If this was the 1980's the suggestions would be very different.
Back then finding anyone who knew anything about computers was a small miracle, and you could get your foot in the door and then experience matters. Today you're competing with people who are already a step above you, so you pretty much have to have demonstrable skills doing the job for someone, or you have to know someone that thinks you're competent enough to help you get a job.
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My latest major project was 2010 -> 2011. I started back in the early 1980's. What I do is very specialized and the major companies in the field all know me. They call when they need something. I'm just lucky that I don't have to go out and sell myself any more. There is also snobbery. The team I lead, and had work on my designs all had Doctorates in CS. At first, they were taken back that this major company would give me carte blanche on running this project. Once we got going, everything was fine. They
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my fault, wasn't clear.
I meant if you were starting now it would be very different. I know a lot of successful computer people (IT, CS etc.) who came in from somewhere else ages ago. But to get into the business from a completely unrelated field is very difficult now.
Same here, but 100% of the good jobs didn't do HR (Score:2)
He has a degree (Score:3)
He has a degree that's what is important to a lot of employer, now he just have to spin the logic part of the philosophy classes, if he took descriptive logic's even more so, emphasize his societal knowledge he should list his relevant experience, then provide a link to a demo. With that he should be quite ahead of the bottom of the classes CS grads, as far as the recruiter is concerned.
For a monetary interesting UNIX admin position, a cert*1, from redhat or from oracle, is a fast-track to a corporate position as he already have the degree.
1- CS major are not good at system administration usually
Expectations (Score:2)
This isn't a huge issue. There are a lot of IT jobs with no requirement formal training or education. However, in addition to not having any training or education, he also apparently has no experience.
Oh, I get it. He set up a server and has taught himself PHP. There can be a significant divide, though, between "someone who knows how to run a Linux server" and "someone who is qualified to be a Linux sysadmin." It's not all technical knowledge; it's also about understanding how businesses work, how to
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Ya, anyone who can read (which is, admittedly, a surprisingly high barrier when it comes to computing) can setup a linux box and hack out a PHP webpage. That's basically starting at the level of a highschool kid or a 1 year college course, so that's about where you'd expect to start employment wise.
Part-time (Score:2)
Study part-time (you can fit one or two courses a semester around a full-time job without too much pain) for whatever degree fits best for high level system administration (it's not, or shouldn't, be Computer Science). Put that degree on your resume, with the projected completion date in the future--if you're worried, put a bullet point underneath stating that it's a degree in progress. This will get you past quick filter passes which throw out resumes that have no undergrad degree.
Anyone who is looking at
Free Karma! (Score:2)
Lots of good comments (Score:2)
Everyone already pointed out a bunch of things. The key is this - if you don't have a degree, what can you show? Is there a website? A blog? A job somewhere, be it nopay/littlepay/volunteer that shows what you did? What can you show a potential employer as something you can do?
Second - show that you have a good attitude about learning. Show how you made mistakes, and then fixed them, and improved upon them.
Next - network! Join local usergroups. Help others. Answer questions. But please don't give
He's on the right track (Score:2)
My degree was in Manufacturing Engineering, but by the time I graduated there was no money and few opportunities in manufacturing in the UK where I lived compared to IT. So I went into IT. Started at the bottom of the ladder at PC support. I was able to talk my way into that job because I had a bit of CAD/CAM knowledge and some experience as a CAD draughtsman, but it actually didn't work out very well because it was in a small company where I was thrown in at the deep end and expected to learn a million
Networking (the personal, not digital, kind) (Score:3)
If he has actual demonstrable knowledge and skills, then he needs to build contacts with people working in the field, specifically, people working in places with sufficiently non-bureaucratic hiring practices that a recommendation from a skilled current employee can help him get to an interview where he can demonstrate that to a hiring manager.
At least, that's how I got my first technical job with a degree in the social sciences and minimal formal experience (e.g., coursework) in computer-related fields. (I didn't actually build connections for that purpose, they were preexisting.)
Demonstrate skills (Score:2)
Demonstrate that, and there will be no shortage of job offers.
Have a sociology degree? Easy (Score:2)
Here's one idea that works really well. If you have a non-IT degree, consider getting an MBA with a concentration in MIS. That "Management Information Systems" bit is equivalent to "IT" for most recruiters.
Do your MBA part time. Continue getting experience. Then you have both a degree *AND* experience when you're done.
As an IT admin..... (Score:2)
1. CS is not IT. So many newbies come out with a CS degree and think they're shit-hot at running a network. Then they dont even know how to swap the tapes out.
2. Social Networking is EVERYTHING. It's not alllll what you know, but who you know -- you may be great with GPO's and cisco gear and write a mean shell script, but if you dont have the industry connections, you're not likely to
Hosting company (Score:2)
The degree's subject doesn't matter. Just having one will give him a leg up.
As long as he knows what he's talking about, he should be able to find work at a hosting company which will have plenty of entry- to low-level sys admin type work. Some sort of volunteer work beforehand to prove that he's not totally inept would help, too.
Start low (Score:2)
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I did the same thing with my psychology degree 30 years ago, but without the certs. These days I design and code automated testing systems and manage the virtual machine environments. Certs might have helped. Hard to say. Never had time.
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What's important (Score:2)
I can't speak for any other workplace, but when I go through resumes I pay very little attention to the "Education" section. This is due to encountering so many people with Bachelor degrees in Computer Science that can barely write "Hello World" when asked to, and Masters degrees who can't write a simple recursive script to crawl a directory structure and do X to files with criteria Y. Putting it bluntly, college degrees have lost their credibility.
The industry I am in is network performance; I'm in QA. W
Apply for jobs? (Score:2)
I wouldn't notice if a resume I got for the positions we are advertizing didn't have a degree listed. And he would have one for the places that deal with HR requiring such a thing.
Of course lack of experience is a harder nut to crack but having a degree in CS doesn't make up for that anyway.
Go into tech support for a couple of months (Score:2)
Start with a simple tech support job which can be had anywhere. After 6 months or so you could spruce up your resume and get a better job. If he thinks he's good enough right now, look for local companies and start freelancing.
After either option, you can pretty much get a job anywhere as a second level support or junior sysadmin.
Take a shitty first job at a company with talent (Score:2)
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Experience is more important than paper (Score:2)
I don't have a degree. School bored me to death so I dropped out and took the GED. That's all the paper I have.
I got some things on my resume by working on my own hobby projects that demonstrated that I could work on moderate-scale systems. I also got a bit of white-collar job experience working as a drafting monkey. Those two things demonstrated the two primary things that employers want to see: a) I'm capable of doing technical things; b) I'm capable of showing up for a job sober enough to not get fir
Get the resume out (Score:2)
Have him put together a resume and get it online, he should at least be able to get a contract job.
Then there's the big consulting firms like Accenture, they love guys with degrees other than CS.
And as others have said, network.
But do not take a job doing techsupport, it's a career limiting move and it won't actually be developing marketable job skills.
Open Source Fame (Score:4, Interesting)
We hire people all the time who have talent/skills but no degree, CS or otherwise. We like to teach people how to do it our way. And no degree means they might think for themself, which can give us an advantage over the competition. We look for actual project experience, on project work like what we're hiring to do.
This is a perfect use of time to work on an open source project. Get something real done, and tell us about it. You might use the project at the job where you're hired. If you're known in the community, their responses to our questions will be specific, meaningful ,and come with URLs and downloadable evidence.
Re: (Score:2)
One Year Computer Science Degree from Oregon State (Score:2)
Degree not required (Score:2)
I didn't bother with university at all and haven't had any real problem finding work. In fact,
1/x (Score:2)
If you have skills (Score:2)
Certificates are gilding the lily. And if you haven't skills, I don't care what certs you have. It's the skills and interest enough to pursue the skills that attract me as a hiring manager. I'm sick of spoon feeding new hires only to have them decide "this isn't really what I want to do".
Degrees and certs: meh. (Score:2)
The lack of a relevant degree may be a problem getting into very large corporate IT, but not elsewhere. Most people I know in the business didn't study anything related in school (I was a Japanese studies major) and it's more useful to have people who have learned on the job and worked their way up. The fact that my #2 has a CS degree has nothing to do with him getting his job - I never even asked about his education background, I just wanted to know about what he could do as a sysadmin. An IT guy with C
Send him my way (Score:2)
My advise (Score:3)
Also, keep an eye out for stuff at your job that adds value to the company but lets you learn. Let the rest of the guys around you do the easy rut stuff. Take on the challenging stuff so you can get paid to learn.
Re: (Score:2)
Verizon wireless. (Score:2)
Have him apply at Verizon wireless. The only company I know where a person can have a completely unrelated degree and get into a high level position without any serious experience.
I can speak from experience on this (Score:2)
I've been in IT for about 20 years now, professionally... to this day I do not have a degree (of any sort actually), yet I'm highly-regarded and paid rather handsomely for my skills.
They key to getting hired initially was to have a portfolio of work. I had done some independent consulting projects before that I could show, but mostly I was showing things I had done on my own. And, a lot of it, most of it even, wasn't remotely work-related: I showed a lot of intros I had written for BBS's years earlier, a
Re: (Score:2)
You definitely need to try if that what you want to do. It can be done. There may not be as many opportunities now as in the mid-late-90's, but there are still A LOT. Particularly in here in Chicago, SF, Austin and Atlanta. There are tons of startup that are looking for talented Software Engineers that will work for lower-than-industry wages in return for an opportunity to get experience (and a lot of then offer great experience, even though some of their products may not be so great.)
I graduated with a deg