More than your resume what a diploma or a certificate signals, consiously or unconsciously to an Employer is Discipline. The ability to get things done on time

More than your resume what a diploma or a certificate signals, consiously or unconsciously to an Employer is Discipline. The ability to get things done on time, on cost, on spec whether the work is boring or not. You might have "cool" stuff on your resume, but how do I tell if I give you a task you can get it done in a disciplined manner. If you have faith in your abilities, you need to prove to people that you are disciplined. Most people don't get this. So when you walk into your next interview, remember the onus is on you to prove it and to convey to them that you want to prove it. Spend some time thinking about the different ways you can do it. As an 18 year old I couldn't afford college, but I walked into the office of every CS prof in the neighborhood asking for work. Noone would give me a programming job (even though I thought I had done 'cool' stuff), but one guy hired me for the weekend to move lab equipment around. That turned into part time grunt work which allowed me to hang around labs, and grad and PhD students. Which turned into sysadmin work that none of them wanted to do. Which turned into writing boring code for them. And after 6 months I was indispensable to them and got a full time position. But those 6 months weren't easy. I would have made more probably at the local McDonalds for far less work! But I knew coding was what I wanted to do and hanging out with all these cool people reinforced it. I would have hung around there for free if they let me. Much later on when talking to the prof about why he kept me around he said one word - discipline. When he gave me a job however dumb it might have been it got done. So remember the onus is on you, to prove to them what you know about yourself - that you have what it takes. Good luck!