In my experience as a hiring manager, a degree can be useful as an indicator, but I wouldn't actually require it for most positions. A degree requirement can a

In my experience as a hiring manager, a degree can be useful as an indicator, but I wouldn't actually require it for most positions. A degree requirement can also be a crutch for HR departments that are overwhelmed by applicant volume and lesser hiring managers that put more stock in a culturally defined checklist than their own judgement about any given candidate's suitability. The biggest problem with the degree-as-a-substitute-for-judgement approach is that not all degree programs are equal to start with. There are degree programs which absolutely speak well of a candidate (on a resume) and there are programs you can graduate from which would be less of an indicator of suitability than relevant work experience. Certainly not all degrees are equal. There are some real bullshit things you can major in insofar as being an indicator for employ-ability is concerned. So for me to care about a degree on a resume, it has to be an appropriate degree and it has to be from a program that I know indicates some skill and perseverance on the part of the candidate... otherwise I dismiss it as an evaluation factor: at that point it's simply an uninformative data point.... it's just noise. To be fair, I say this as someone that has had a good career in technology without a degree. I have do have a fair amount of college (in one of those bullshit majors I was mentioning), but no sheepskin. (Actually, one of the schools I attended seemingly attached so little to the degree in terms of success of the candidate, that they had a policy of indefinite re-admittance since many wanted to finish solely for self-enrichment after they had gone off and had their career success pre-graduation :-) ).