Any hiring manager has to decide how she feels about college degrees. Is it a must? Nice to have? Irrelevant? It comes up in conversation. You have to decide whether it influences your hiring decisions.
Applicants want to know, too. Should I stick it out in college? Should I change my degree from psychology to CS? (I know an intern now facing that kind of question.)
I interviewed an applicant a couple of weeks ago on a university campus and he wrote to ask me about college degrees.
From the Applicant
Hi Tyler,
I have had this question lately and have asked several people and I’m interested in your opinion. Is a CS major worth it? Would a CS minor + Professional/CS related job experience + self-learning give me the same job opportunities?
For example when you interviewed you did not even see my résumé, you just cared about the coding/algorithmic questions, what would have happened if I did answer everything well but I was pursuing a CS minor instead of a Major? Would that make a difference?
Will a CS minor + Professional/CS related job experience + self-learning be enough to get CS jobs?
Thanks for your time!
Raul
Manager Reply
Raul,
Good question! The answer is: it depends.
While I didn’t spend a lot of time on your résumé others did. The purpose of the résumé is to get an interview.
When I’m at the résumé-reading stage the degree does matter. All other things being equal I would rather hire someone with a CS or CIT degree than someone with a Math or Biology degree. But work experience matters as well. If you have a CS minor plus a good portfolio and experience then your degree wouldn’t get in the way of working for me.
One of the best intern interviews I ever had was with a Physics major. Didn’t get him. Dang!
Remember, not everyone thinks this way. There are still a lot of hiring managers that will discard you out-of-hand if you have an unrelated bachelors degree. In some ways, an odd bachelors degree is worse than just dropping out of college — just because it can be distracting.
Does that answer your question?
By the way, would you mind if I used your question as a basis for a post on ManagerJS.com?
~Tyler
Applicant Follows-up
Tyler,
So basically I could get a job interview and actually get the job with you with a CS minor + Professional/CS related job experience + self-learning and lets say a major in Business Management?
You mentioned others reading my Resume, who are those others? and what role or power do they have in the hiring process? What do they decide?
Yes no problem, for sure you can use it, would be nice to read the post.
~Raul
Manager Reply
Raul,
For my part, I hire people based on what they can do, not solely their credentials. Majoring in CS or Web Development helps to inform me on what you can do. Seeing a portfolio corroborates that.
If you don’t have a strong degree then you need even stronger portfolio and web experience. Yes, you can work for me without a degree in CS. One of my favorite past colleagues dropped out of high school.
Remember, some companies will never schedule the interview if you don’t have a good degree. And when I’m flooded with resumes I have to filter out the noise somehow. Filtering by degree is likely to happen from time to time.
I don’t recommend getting a non-technical degree if you want a technical job.
Oh, and for this interview process you needed to pass the screener just to get an interview scheduled. The screener looked at your résumé. Then to get a job offer your résumé and the interview notes were reviewed by all the managers with openings. They could have based their decision to offer or withhold based on your résumé.
Thanks for the thread!
~Tyler
Applicant’s Final Words
That was really helpful!
Thanks for your answer Tyler, I appreciate your time.
Enjoy your day! will see you soon in another interview haha ;)!
Raul
What do you think?
Managers, what do you think about degrees? Are they a must have? I know that for at least some jobs they are.
Applicants, what do you think? Would it change your major if you knew you could get web work with a different degree?
Finally: please don’t drop out of college just because I say you can get hired anyway. There’s a lot more to life than getting a good job. Plus, you might need the training.
