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Are there alternatives to demonstrate those qualities to the equivelance of a degree to you? Just wondering if all else is equal what could people without a deg
by ghxst 3y ago
Are there alternatives to demonstrate those qualities to the equivelance of a degree to you? Just wondering if all else is equal what could people without a degree look to add to their resume to benefit from in these situations.
- nickff 3y agoIt’s tough, because a degree demonstrates perseverance and conformism. There’s no short-cut to either because a short-cut would be the choice of non-conformists & less perseverant people. There’s a great deal of work on this, known as the ‘signaling model of education’.
- ghxst 3y agoI agree with this broadly speaking, I wasn't necessarily asking for a shortcut or way to undermine it, more just of a way of demonstrating this ability assuming you have it.
- nickff 3y agoThe problem with demonstrating this equivalence is that signalling must be expensive to work; there's no 'low-cost' substitute for signalling. One example is natural diamond engagement rings; they must be expensive to signal commitment; an imitation doesn't do the job, no matter how beautiful.
- sokoloff 3y agoI don't know a great answer (and I wish I did, because one of the high performers on my team is "undergrad equivalent of ABD" and I want people like them to succeed without unfair negative treatment). I would say that it's hard to directly target an equivalent in an interview, because you don't want to needlessly draw attention to the fact that you don't have a degree. ("Hey interviewer, if you're worried about me not having a degree, think about the fact that I earned an Eagle Scout honor or trained for and completed a marathon or <XYZ>." Maybe the interviewer hadn't ever thought about the fact that you didn't have a degree and now you've soured them a bit.) For the concern I raised in the GP post, I would say anything that shows persistent and consistent dedicated effort, over a long (ideally multi-year) period of time resulting in a successful outcome would qualify and would be something that I'd tried to work into one of my answers.
- ghxst 3y agoAt the company I currently work at we are open to look at GitHub activity as a good indicator, this might work for some candidates but definitely not all.
- sokoloff 3y agoI think non-trivial quality github activity over a sustained period of time would be an excellent indicator of the type of persistence that I'm thinking of, and something that a candidate could pretty easily work into an interview answer in a positive light. Plus, even if they don't use it to break a tie in an "all else equal" interview, the contributions themselves will make the candidate a stronger candidate.
- ghaff 3y agoI'd make it a bit broader--OK, you have significant open source contributions on GitHub. So long as it's not OK you have a degree frm $X and have 5 years of experience with $Y so where's your GitHub?
- xetplan 3y agoI don't have a degree and it has not mattered in a long time. On an interview, I don't even get enough time to get into all my professional experience at this point. Of course, I am not applying for something that would need a PhD in chemical engineering. My experience has been that most companies are pretty good at identifying who the smart people are and giving them more responsibility. If anything, I would consider a business or psychology degree a huge red flag if I was doing the hiring. I should add though that it is hard to compare for myself because without a degree I have always known I had to do that much more networking. Doesn't matter what degree you have if I make friends with the hiring manager.
- LtWorf 3y ago> My experience has been that most companies are pretty good at identifying who the smart people are and giving them more responsibility. My experience has been the opposite. Regardless of degree or not degree.