IT Field

whs said:

As an employer, I just want to say this: our best geeks are self taught, or have a minor degree plus some internship background

Yeah, that may work if you seek employment in some rinky dink roller bearing company. But if you want to make a carreer with one of the Fortune 500 companies, it will not work.

Sure it will, my coworker with the food science degree and myself came from Thomson Reuters...they are a pretty large organization.

Now, after getting into IT, I've persued and obtained numerous certs and such to go along with my experience. But it's always been the certs and experience that have mattered most in job interviews...my actual college degree isn't even discussed.

As a person who used to do interviewing at Thomson Reuters...our requirements were always certs or certain # of years of on the job experience or equivalent.

Thomson Reuters screened people with a recruiting dept as well and we would have weeded out a ton of applicants as well....but for the IT jobs it wouldn't typically be due to a lack of an IT based college degree. We published either required certs or required years of experience. Those people who had the experience or the certs...or some other equivalent experience were the only resumes we would see. From that point, the IT guys would go over the resumes and further weed out which we wanted to see and which we didn't.

So, my point in all of this is that education is important, but doesn't necessarily have to be college based. There is a lot of self learning which can then be backed up with certs.

The hardest part is that you usually need experience to get certs and it's hard to sometimes get experience on the job without having the certs. Which is often why a ton of people have to start a bit lower than they hope and prove themselves. For example, quite a number of IT server engineers came up the ranks from help desk call center to get to where they are today. That's what I had to do.

To you guys mulling over your career, I sincerely wish you the best. As a former HR type, I can tell you that how your present yourself - resume, cover letter, etc - is critical. It doesn't matter what your education is, if you don't present yourself well in writing, you are not going get through the HR screening unless you have something really outstanding.

whs said:

As an employer, I just want to say this: our best geeks are self taught, or have a minor degree plus some internship background

Yeah, that may work if you seek employment in some rinky dink roller bearing company. But if you want to make a carreer with one of the Fortune 500 companies, it will not work. In those companies, the applications are sorted out by the personnel department and the department that is actually hiring the person will not even see an application that does not have the right credentials.

I guess then we are a rinky dink roller bearing company.

My statement was not a recommendation, it describes our current situation. A small company of only 10+ employees and a yearly turnover less than one executive in these Fortune 500 companies makes.

We have time to interview each applicant, possibility to see and feel the person behind an application. I like it this way. I've been sometimes disappointed, sometimes positively surprised. Luckily more the latter.

I stand 100% behind what I said about education in my previous post:

Kari said:

I think, and believe, that education is important. But 'nerdism' is an art form, it's in you or it isn't. The lack of formal education can't hide it no more than an accidental masters degree can compensate it. You either have it or not.

Kari