I have around 12 years and some change experience of working in IT, but recently got rejected from a job because 8 of those years were working IT in the Army.
The people I were trying to get a job with said it didn’t translate. The resume I put in with them had no military jargon in it, I explained the software and hardware I worked with, and for my reference sheet made sure to only include civilian contractors, General Schedules, and the professors from CompTIA, Microsoft, Cisco, and Google whomst I got my certs from so no military personnel, but they still said I didn’t have the ‘correct’ kind of experience.
What the fuck happened to the job market, gamers?! Like the job market now feels like the dating scene and every single person you wanna have a relationship with is either only looking for a hook up or has stupidly high standards or both! What the fuck do you mean my IT experience in the Army isn’t the ‘right kind’ of experience?!
Bitch out my dick.
It’s probabky the SoS. Act like they were going to hire from the outside, but they were gonna promote the guy that already worked there for cheaper anyway.
I’m in this picture. Early career, getting into industry was brutal to say the least. After I worked my way in, it became obvious that a degree was used as a proxy for socioeconomic class and IQ in a lot of places. These days, I suspect a degree is also being used now as a proxy for “loyalty” just by how much debt it puts on your credit record.
That said, there were and are places that will look for other factors when hiring. I’d be willing to bet that those opportunities are also in the small corners of the economy that are nowhere near Fortune-500 scale. But you’re going to have to get hired on referral, as having someone vouch for your character and work-ethic are things HR cannot figure out from a resume. As far as hiring risk those, those two factors alone are massive advantages if you have a strong recommendation or two.
Assuming a degree will get you a solid job.
Haha… hahaha… no.
Joke’s on them. I went to university.
Sorry, to apply here you should have went to _di_versity.
This makes perfect sense to me. The boss is saying that you didn’t learn anything in college that you’ll use in this job, but your participation in college is what proves you’ll be a good little work rat.
Nah, the outstanding payable AND non-dischargeable even in bankruptcy student loans are what gurantees that
That certainly helps. A job you don’t need is a job that can’t mistreat you.
I remember this one business guy sitting next to me on a plane, pretty much told me that when I was younger. He said a degree just proves to them you’re trained to do what they say.
“I see here you didn’t list a degree, did you forget to add yours?”.
“I actually don’t have one, I figured my 16 years of software engineering experience at 3 different fortune 100 companies would count as experience in lieu.”
“…well we really wanted that degree, so unfortunately…”
My bachelor became obsolete a few years after i finished and couldnt put it on my resume anymore - still had to pay the student debt though
wdym, obsolete?
As in they stopped teaching it a few years later. They started rolling out a different bachelor and made my one redundent. I couldnt even select it from those drop down menus when filling out your resume
Can’t you just write it in your resume though? The fact that a new bachelor exists didn’t mean you didn’t spend 3-4 years of your life on that one…
Oh this was ages ago. I did that and had to explain each time why my resume had it yet my digital application didnt, but once i got enough experience no one cared about my education anymore anyway
I was asked to review my own job description. “Must have relevant degree”. Me, awkwardly, can we update that to “Relevant degree would be a bonus”?
Not sure if serious or joking
It depends on the company.
I have an AP degree in Computer Science (Academic Profession - it’s a 2+0.5 year degree in Denmark that serves as a basis for a BSc specialisation, basically allowing you to “top it up” to multiple full BSc’s if you want to, e.g. in my case I could’ve gone on for sysadmin, database engineering, and software engineering BSc’s, each taking a year + 4-6 months of internship), and even with a decade+ of experience working for companies of all sizes, I often get rejected because not having a full Bachelors.
And it’s often a weird leadership thing. A few years back I interviewed for a company, and hit it off with the tech lead of the team I would’ve been joining. The whole process was smooth, the team liked me, and vocally preferred me over other candidates. But the CTO - who was the last interview round - opted for a candidate with lesser skills, because he had a BSc from a university the CTO knew (or was somehow involved with, I don’t know the specifics). They ended up firing him within half a year, and to date the tech lead tells me how much better things would’ve been if the C-suite wasn’t so blinded by a flashy diploma.
Meanwhile most places don’t give a damn. If you have experience, and/or a good CV, and can prove yourself in the technical challenge part of the interview, it doesn’t matter if you have a PhD or if you walked in from the street with a high school diploma. What matters is what you can do and deliver.
Yeah that’s the case here too. Almost two decades at ASX 100 companies
The exceptions and ones that don’t care are the only reason I’ve been able to advance my career so far. It’s crazy how a fresher with 0 work experience can be preferred over a a decade and a harf of real world experience just because they took some (mostly unrelated!) classes
how a fresher with 0 work experience can be preferred
I wanted to tell you that humans peak at 25. So if experience is not needed for the job, the younger person is the better option. However, it’s a myth.
I mean, obviously??
Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) asks for high school transcripts, so this is believable
How’s that work for people from countries that don’t have highschool transcripts (and wtf even are those?)
I often hear that it’s not what you learned in college but rather that you have proven that you can regularly come sit in a place for hours for an extended amount of time out of your own free will.
Except for the 1/4 of my classes that I skipped and still passed
It’s more your ability to learn. I will probably never need to make my own linked list but learning how to taught me what pointers are.
School put me off going to uni. I don’t need to spend even more hours learning about the fucking benefits and drawbacks of token ring networks.
Government tripling the cost of uni compared to the year before me was also a lot of it. Didn’t learn to drive because insurance alone was £2k which I didn’t have. Now you want me to spend £9k a year? Haha, nope.
They tried to make it sound better by saying its like the cost of going to Starbucks every day. That put me off Starbucks too.
No, but knowing how one works help you get a fuller understanding of data structures. And data structures is definitively something one will use (well, if you’re a back-end dev, anyway)
I think a lot of it is well roundedness and a good foundation for the later practical applications.
I learned basically no practical knowledge with my IT bachelors. But every IT class of my associates degree was a certification prep course.
Tbf, two year programs are great for specific careers.
Lol as a drop out I thought linked list and binary sort were the apex of programming and useful in all context.
ehh, even people that retain literally nothing can get through college to get a paper
Lol, lmao even. Depends on the major and the university/college 😂
Maybe YOUR college
Surely having an employment history with jobs lasting more than a month also proves that?
logically, but employers are rarely logical. Also the age old problem of literally everyone requiring “experience” so you can’t even get that employment history.
There may be the odd bureaucratic company here and there that can not overlook a missing degree because there is no procedure for it. Generally though, previous employment is proof enough.
Personally, I’d avoid the ones who demand to see one anyway because I wouldn’t be a good fit.
Yup. Can you be a slave?
It’s surprisingly an issue when getting workers through an agency
The ol’ Catch-22 of the working world.
