191–200 of 246 posts
Education can never hurt. True => "I am the only one in the company that has a degree (MSc compsci). I know stuff the others never heard of." -- RamblingCTO Learning on the job will teach you part of what others know, and none of the rest. Learning on your own will teach you what you're interested in and none of what you hate. I'm no shining example. My whole life has been a series of mistakes, but I've been happily…
You can get a job in times of plenty without a BS CS degree. I have many times. But, getting a job at a highly sought after company is quite difficult. In lean times, every job is difficult to land and the coveted are ~impossible. Even getting to a phone screen. Going back, I’d get the full BS degree. Even though they were teaching Fortran at the time.
I just have an irrational fear of being unemployable, which I feel like at the moment even though I have 2 long term clients that see me as un-replaceable (not exactly true, but I'm fine with it).
You can get a job in times of plenty without a BS CS degree. I have many times. But, getting a job at a highly sought after company is quite difficult. In lean times, every job is difficult to land and the coveted are ~impossible. Even getting to a phone screen. Going back, I’d get the full BS degree. Even though they were teaching Fortran at the time.
I'm not terribly interested in sought after companies, especially now that they are doing massive layoffs, and branding these people as "low performers". I just have an irrational fear of being unemployable, which I feel like at the moment even though I have 2 long term clients that see me as un-replaceable (not exactly true, but I'm fine with it).
Others with lower pay, but good benefits like JPL won't even consider you without a science degree.
I have a CS and Business Management degree. What got me hired was my knowledge and experience, and I worked with coworkers without degrees. You have to prove that you can do the job. Then again, I've seen $15/hr jobs that require a Master's in CS. That management is crazy.
I hear you. Even with the degree, you have to know your stuff. I just feel like my resume always ends up at the bottom of the pile.
I have a CS and Business Management degree. What got me hired was my knowledge and experience, and I worked with coworkers without degrees. You have to prove that you can do the job. Then again, I've seen $15/hr jobs that require a Master's in CS. That management is crazy.
What was the role? What region was this in? Outside of a PhD student or something similar, I can't imagine this would be in the US, Canada, most of Europe.
It's complicated. I work at a "target" software company (competes with FAANG on prestige, but not literally FAANG). I interview candidates for senior+ roles, approximately one per week. By the time a candidate gets to me, I read their resume only for icebreakers/small-talk, and I couldn't care less what their resume says otherwise. But, I also happen to know that our internal recruiters, who are the first line of scr…
> the lack of a degree. Lack of a degree or lack of a C.S. degree?
There's a story that goes: A man was tasked with hiring an employee. He got hundreds of resumes. His friend looks at the stack and asks him "how are you going to decide among all those?" The man grabs half the stack, throws it in the garbage and says "Simple, I don't hire unlucky people". Degrees matter when employers don't have the time and/or ability to make a reasonable decision for every candidate. They need ways…
Most relevant response yet. Thank you. This is exactly the category that I'm in. A couple of years ago I applied to a large company, with a referral. 0-2 years experience and a non-specific bachelor's required. I got my rejection in 15 minutes, after business hours. My resume didn't even see human eyes. Did I mention I had a referral?
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I don't regret getting a degree fwiw. My degree was 100% focused on math and comp.sci. (not in North America where they force you to take other subjects). If you have 20 years of experience I wonder if there are options for you to have that recognized towards a degree or even to get accepted into a Masters program (where presumably you'd have to make up some required courses but still).
> If you have 20 years of experience I wonder if there are options for you to have that recognized towards a degree Isn't what those scam "universities" do? Sell you a diploma based on your "life experience"? Point being, a degree awarded like that may not have any value.
If it gets your resume past the process that filters out applicants without degrees then I’d say it has value.
I was self taught for 10 years in the field and found a program that offers a Master's degree with work experience accounting for the undergrad. I didn't take calculus or stats in my undergrad and that has caused some headaches in completing the degree, but the amount of stuff I was exposed to in such a short period of time was incredible. Very quickly into the program I was stuck by just how unethical it was for me,…
A masters with no undergrad? I didn't even know that was a thing.
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I’ve known managers who automatically throw out resumes where candidates graduated from Devry or WGU unless they have really impressive work histories. And this is coming from someone who graduated from a no name state college.
That doesn't surprise me.
Also I rather get an anal probe with a cactus than ever work for any large company again.