> (I've never had an interview where they asked about my college education.
They don’t ask, but many places throw your resume without a bachelors into the trash at the first step in the hiring process. Ask me how I know.
They don’t ask, but many places throw your resume without a bachelors into the trash at the first step in the hiring process. Ask me how I know.
Many of my friends and I don’t have a bachelors, and we haven’t noticed this issue. I have been asked if I have a degree, and I am honest about it and tell my story.
While not everyone agrees, I think it matters more what you’ve done on your own and on the job than what degree you’ve got.
It can be compensated with 15 years of experience. Better not be a millennial with no degree.
I've definitely been asked why I didn't go to/finish my Bachelor's in many interviews. Who knows how many jobs I was skipped over because I didn't have it. Could be 0 for all I know but how would I know?
That being said, after a few years of working nobody cared about it anymore.
I also why its why I didn't get a call back from Ebay I suspect spain where the hr person was based might have some biases.
I'm very understanding of this sentiment. I have suggested to people to get around this by simply lying about having a bachelors degree on their resume. If the employer verifies, you're out nothing. If they don't, you have a job you otherwise wouldn't have had. You have to be able to do the job though.
I’ve found the kinds of places that focus on these things tend to coincide.
Many, many employers public & private do verify. And some people will start rumors if you are in a small community, or if they know someone you know. And if the employer later finds out that you lied, the lie will cost you the job, not the lack of education.
IMO if you are low on experience like education, your best bets are things like formal networking events or informal events (parties, concerts with friends, etc.), or even informal walk-ins to companies where you want to work. For some, the biggest problem is that they won't talk about wanting a job around their friends, for fear of appearing incompetent.
As I mentioned, even if you don’t get the job or lose the job, you’re still ahead of not trying. And you now have experience to put towards your next employer (and your old employer will only verify employment dates, as they don’t want to be sued).
This is the unfortunate reality of an asymmetric labor market where employers can make demands with no cost to themselves. Fake it until you make it.
OP is competing against people who have put in work that he/she hasn't. That's just the reality. The best way in is to show the employer that they are a qualitatively superior employee. Networking and filters are _very often_ surpassed by leadership, sometimes even by creating new positions that are an exact fit for that person's experience. I have a few clients who were hired this way, and had better opportunities because of it. I even got a job that way myself long ago, when a CEO friend-of-a-friend hired me in a low level role but then re-read my resume and moved me to corporate offices to work more directly with leadership.
Lying about your past is not a good idea in this case, and it's far worse than just faking a role until you get better at it.
I don’t suggest lying lightly, but it is sometimes necessary in the current environment.
Dodging around relational morals like "don't lie to others" or "be a good human being to others" is a typical blind spot of a game-analyzer-type logician. "I beat the game, don't I win the prize?" are famous last words in these cases; I suggest you choose your audience very carefully if you wish for your cognitive gifts to be celebrated in the context of such a strongly-recognized developmental target as being an honest person. Perhaps sporting or hostage negotiation or other "bluffing"-oriented domains are better suited for such advice, where some variant of "outright lying" is given a little bit more leeway.
I fail to see how poisoning your own reputation comes out as "still ahead"; that is absolutely guaranteed to get your résumé silently discarded. The tech community isn't that big, even in the tech hubs, and word does eventually get around both among engineers and recruiters.
[citation needed]
Court cases are a matter of public record and, given your, ahem, open advocacy of falsehoods, it's unclear why we should believe your unsupported assertion.
The gabber is going to look worse than the candidate by a long shot.
Careful who you gab about and who you gab to.
It's like marrying someone who cheated on their spouse. They'll cheat on you, next.
(Wahres Leben = “real life” in German)
If they actually check they won’t find the university but they can’t discount the fact it might exist. So HR is more likely to follow up with you then throw your resume out, and you can take that chance to explain you being more to the table than a university graduate.
You should not lie on your resume, but if you're going to lie, just find a way to make it harder to verify. Presumably the for-profit schools that got shut down in the last few years would be hard to check with. Obviously they aren't accredited, but that's not your fault. It'd be, at least, a believable lie.
Eh, I don't have a degree. My own strategy? I just apply until I find a place where that isn't a hard requirement.
I personally don't mention my education at all. Let them assume what they like. I mean, if they ask, I'll tell them, (they ask like 20% of the time, and it has never been a problem at that phase, as far as I can tell. At least once, the interviewer acted super surprised and I got the job.)
Note, a lot of places claim to "require" degrees. Treat that requirement like any other "requirement" on the job description; in my experience, you need something like 3 out of 5 of the requirements to get a chance at an interview; the degree is just one more I've gotta make up for, no different than not knowing Java.
>Networking and meetups won’t get you passed HR filters and corporate requirements.
This hasn't been my experience. Someone on the inside with pull has a lot more influence than HR, in my experience. It's very rare that we technical people approve a person and HR blocks them; the only cases I know the details of in my own experience have to do with serious (and obvious) lies turned up by the background check.
I mean, certainly, there are jobs that will bin my resume right off... and I'm sure there are some jobs that will bin my resume even with a good internal recommendation, (I could tell stories there, but they all have to do with trying to get work outside of the USA.) but my experience is that most places? A good internal advocate is worth a thousand pieces of paper from the university.
The other thing to keep in mind is that a technician who misleads is about as useful as a salesperson who can't deceive without crossing that line in the way that good salespeople can. A lot of the startup advice is fine if you are management-track, but if you are looking for individual contributor work, being honest and straightforward in ways that don't really work when you are management/sales is the order of the day. I've seen a lot of technicians fired for lying about a screwup (or because management thought they lied about a screwup) - I haven't seen many technicians get fired for actually screwing up.
For non-US schools, there are services that will provide an evaluation of foreign academic credentials. I know someone who was reviewing a candidate from Poland for a position requiring specific credentials and used a service to find that the listed education did not meet US standards for the position credentials.
Best not to lie. When I hire, education is last on my list of criteria, but if I select a candidate and the HR background check turns up an outright lie, it is out of my hands.
No, you have a job for as long as you're able to keep your lie secret. Once the lie comes out, even if it's X years down the road, you're terminated for cause, and if a prospective new employer calls they will be told you are "ineligible to be rehired." There are possible legal consequences as well.
GP, do not lie. In the long run, the world works out to be pretty fair, and liars are revealed for what they are.