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Within a job ladder, you then have levels. They tend to map onto years of experience, whether you have a degree or not, what kind of degree it is, how we

Within a job ladder, you then have levels. They tend to map onto years of experience, *whether you have a degree or not*, what kind of degree it is, how well you do in your interviews, how much money you ask for or hint about, and possibly how well you did as an intern. I don't work at a big corp. Has anyone seen career growth stall directly because they lack a (bachelor's) degree (in CS)? This article doesn't directly state that, but I'm tangentially curious.

paxys 8y ago
In my experience a degree is worthless as soon as you are hired. From then on you will only be judged based on performance. I don't even know what degrees (if any) most of my coworkers have. Of course there can always be problems with skills or performance due to not having a relevant degree.
- chrisper 8y ago
  Not having a degree can also create issues with certain visas. But I think with many years of experience this requirement can be replaced. But that's not "right after you get hired"
timv 8y ago
> Has anyone seen career growth stall directly because they lack a degree Like @paxys (sibling comment), I've not seen it be a problem once you're in, but it does affect the ease with which you get job offers, and those can be a big part of career growth. Sometimes you land a great job, in a great company, with a great manager and you work your way up, with the right opportunities at the right times with the right rewards. But most people find that they run into a blocker somewhere along the way. Maybe the company isn't growing fast enough to create relevant oppportunities. Maybe you get a manager who sees you as irreplaceable and doesn't want you to move up. Maybe something stuffs up and the blame falls on you and your promotions get stalled for a while. And in all those cases (and more) it helps to have a ticket out of there. Even with 5 to 10 years of experience, some % of hiring managers / recruiters will look at where you got your degree (and in what discipline) and take that into account when deciding whether to interview you. And fewer interviews leads to fewer offers, leads to fewer choices, leads to less control over your career path. The lack of a degree is not a total blocker - once you get into that first role and prove yourself you've got good chances - but it will have some impact and could make it harder to meet your goals.
sixdimensional 8y ago
I have, in that for applying to jobs via job boards and postings, the algorithms eliminate you if you don't meet the minimum requirements. So, if you apply to a job requiring a degree in CS but don't have one, you often get deprioritized or flat out rejected. If you get in without a CS degree, you often can get looked down upon as "not technical" or "more business than technical" unless you prove your chops coding. Of course, one has to ask - how many people today have a CS education before they even reach college? It's possible that somebody already has CS education from high school and chooses to study something else to broaden their horizons. Unfortunately, that can be a costly mistake when applying to jobs requiring a CS degree. But it can pay huge dividends in one's diversity and understanding of the world. Places that really pay attention somewhat ignore your degree or education and focus on your skills and/or experience, IMHO.
ubernostrum 8y ago
I have a friend who has dealt with this multiple times. She left high school early to go straight into college, so officially she never graduated from high school. That's an automatic rejection from many companies, even for "white collar" positions. It doesn't matter that she's studied at some prestigious places, has a post-graduate degree, etc., because there's an unchangeable, un-bypass-able filter at the start of the process which rejects anyone who doesn't have a high-school diploma.
- infinite8s 8y ago
  Can't she fix that by getting her GED?
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    Or simply answer that she has graduated from high school? I'm not one for dishonesty in general, but if you have a post-graduate degree from an accredited college, ticking the box on an application form that you also have graduated high-school is damn near not a lie, IMO.
    - 80386 8y ago
      I did the same thing (college straight out of 10th grade, didn't bother to get a GED) and in the very rare case that a job application asks whether I graduated from high school but doesn't ask about degrees, I just say I did. If anyone were to ask about that later in the process, I'd explain that I didn't finish high school but did finish college. But no one's ever asked me.
- dasil003 8y ago
  This is odd because I’ve typically seen the question phrased as “What is the highest degree of education you’ve received?” if not totally resume based. What kind of places have this kind of process?
jaggederest 8y ago
No, but I have seen people's career stall because they worked on the wrong project. As my manager put it at the time "Nobody gets promoted for reducing the size of a tire fire by 50%". You have to be really strategic about what you work on, and for who. It's not about the technical contributions, it's about finding and retaining a sponsor higher in the organization. You help them torpedo competing initiatives and increase the headcount they manage (headcount is points), and they help you navigate the political climate to get onto the project du jour. I worked at an old school BigCo for 3 years and we shipped not a single product from a team of ~300 people if you count peripherally involved people. The only thing that saved us was that we managed and maintained a small software tool used directly by the CTO of the conglomerate, which we could wave as a ward against interference. Some of those 300 got promotions, some got transferred (far away from their home and family, into different divisions that they had no experience with, aka exile), and some got laid off, even though as far as I could tell none of us had any ability to affect the end result (priorities changed too quickly to make any headway). For the record, I quit. Mean time between reorganizations, management shakeups, and goal shifts was ~2.5 months.
- zelos 8y ago
  I think this is depressingly true. As a pure technical person, there is a limit where your technical skills will take you in many companies. I've been stuck as "the guy who quietly fixes the problems no one else can figure out" for years, while being passed over for promotion because I'm not sufficiently externally visible in that role.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  > I have seen people's career stall because they worked on the wrong project. ... and then they wonder why there's so much turnover in our industry. "Due to circumstances completely outside your control, you have no future at this company." "Hm - well, maybe I have a future at this other company then." "What ever happened to loyalty?!"
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

Within a job ladder, you then have levels. They tend to map onto years of experience, *whether you have a degree or not*, what kind of degree it is, how we

paxys 8y ago

In my experience a degree is worthless as soon as you are hired. From then on you will only be judged based on performance. I don't even know what degrees (if any) most of my coworkers have. Of course there can always be problems with skills or performance due to not having a relevant degree.

chrisper 8y ago
Not having a degree can also create issues with certain visas. But I think with many years of experience this requirement can be replaced. But that's not "right after you get hired"

timv 8y ago

> Has anyone seen career growth stall directly because they lack a degree Like @paxys (sibling comment), I've not seen it be a problem once you're in, but it does affect the ease with which you get job offers, and those can be a big part of career growth. Sometimes you land a great job, in a great company, with a great manager and you work your way up, with the right opportunities at the right times with the right rewards. But most people find that they run into a blocker somewhere along the way. Maybe the company isn't growing fast enough to create relevant oppportunities. Maybe you get a manager who sees you as irreplaceable and doesn't want you to move up. Maybe something stuffs up and the blame falls on you and your promotions get stalled for a while. And in all those cases (and more) it helps to have a ticket out of there. Even with 5 to 10 years of experience, some % of hiring managers / recruiters will look at where you got your degree (and in what discipline) and take that into account when deciding whether to interview you. And fewer interviews leads to fewer offers, leads to fewer choices, leads to less control over your career path. The lack of a degree is not a total blocker - once you get into that first role and prove yourself you've got good chances - but it will have some impact and could make it harder to meet your goals.

sixdimensional 8y ago

I have, in that for applying to jobs via job boards and postings, the algorithms eliminate you if you don't meet the minimum requirements. So, if you apply to a job requiring a degree in CS but don't have one, you often get deprioritized or flat out rejected. If you get in without a CS degree, you often can get looked down upon as "not technical" or "more business than technical" unless you prove your chops coding. Of course, one has to ask - how many people today have a CS education before they even reach college? It's possible that somebody already has CS education from high school and chooses to study something else to broaden their horizons. Unfortunately, that can be a costly mistake when applying to jobs requiring a CS degree. But it can pay huge dividends in one's diversity and understanding of the world. Places that really pay attention somewhat ignore your degree or education and focus on your skills and/or experience, IMHO.

ubernostrum 8y ago

I have a friend who has dealt with this multiple times. She left high school early to go straight into college, so officially she never graduated from high school. That's an automatic rejection from many companies, even for "white collar" positions. It doesn't matter that she's studied at some prestigious places, has a post-graduate degree, etc., because there's an unchangeable, un-bypass-able filter at the start of the process which rejects anyone who doesn't have a high-school diploma.

infinite8s 8y ago
Can't she fix that by getting her GED?
- sokoloff 8y ago
  Or simply answer that she has graduated from high school? I'm not one for dishonesty in general, but if you have a post-graduate degree from an accredited college, ticking the box on an application form that you also have graduated high-school is damn near not a lie, IMO.
  - 80386 8y ago
    I did the same thing (college straight out of 10th grade, didn't bother to get a GED) and in the very rare case that a job application asks whether I graduated from high school but doesn't ask about degrees, I just say I did. If anyone were to ask about that later in the process, I'd explain that I didn't finish high school but did finish college. But no one's ever asked me.
dasil003 8y ago
This is odd because I’ve typically seen the question phrased as “What is the highest degree of education you’ve received?” if not totally resume based. What kind of places have this kind of process?

jaggederest 8y ago

No, but I have seen people's career stall because they worked on the wrong project. As my manager put it at the time "Nobody gets promoted for reducing the size of a tire fire by 50%". You have to be really strategic about what you work on, and for who. It's not about the technical contributions, it's about finding and retaining a sponsor higher in the organization. You help them torpedo competing initiatives and increase the headcount they manage (headcount is points), and they help you navigate the political climate to get onto the project du jour. I worked at an old school BigCo for 3 years and we shipped not a single product from a team of ~300 people if you count peripherally involved people. The only thing that saved us was that we managed and maintained a small software tool used directly by the CTO of the conglomerate, which we could wave as a ward against interference. Some of those 300 got promotions, some got transferred (far away from their home and family, into different divisions that they had no experience with, aka exile), and some got laid off, even though as far as I could tell none of us had any ability to affect the end result (priorities changed too quickly to make any headway). For the record, I quit. Mean time between reorganizations, management shakeups, and goal shifts was ~2.5 months.

zelos 8y ago
I think this is depressingly true. As a pure technical person, there is a limit where your technical skills will take you in many companies. I've been stuck as "the guy who quietly fixes the problems no one else can figure out" for years, while being passed over for promotion because I'm not sufficiently externally visible in that role.
commandlinefan 8y ago
> I have seen people's career stall because they worked on the wrong project. ... and then they wonder why there's so much turnover in our industry. "Due to circumstances completely outside your control, you have no future at this company." "Hm - well, maybe I have a future at this other company then." "What ever happened to loyalty?!"
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]