You may think you need a college degree to get a job at a good company. Not true. In fact, CNBC reports that ‘as the number of tech jobs has climbed, far outpacing the number of applicants, companies like IBM have turned to talent with non-traditional educational backgrounds’. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, technology occupations are projected to grow 13% from 2016 to 2026, which equates to 557,100 new jobs. This high demand for tech workers has resulted in skills-based hiring rather than offers made on the basis of credentials of degrees. And IBM is not the only company; there are many companies offering tech jobs that don’t require a degree. Check out this list via Glassdoor of top companies that want your skills, regardless of whether you have the official credentials. Want a tech job without a degree? Here are the top three tech companies in the list. We’re sure you’ll recognise them all!
Size: 85,050 employees
Hiring For: Product Manager, Recruiter, Software Engineer, Product Marketing Manager, Research Scientist, Mechanical Engineer, Developer Relations Intern, UX Engineer, SAP Cloud Consultant, Administrative Business Partner & more.
Tips: Here’s a video put together by Google on how to prepare for a technical role at this company. As far as coding goes, you’ll be expected to know at least one programming language really well, preferably C++, Java, Python, Go, or C.
Company Size: 123 000 employees
Hiring For: Genius (a tech support role located in most Apple stores), Design Verification Engineer, Engineering Project Manager, iPhone Buyer, Apple Technical Specialist.
Tips? The good news about Apple is that you to get a tech job without a degree there, including as a Software Engineer, ‘equivalent work experience’ is fine by them. Following a non-traditional career path works fine for this premium technology company. And truthfully, anything else would be hypocrisy considering that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs never graduated from college.
Company Size: 380,300 employees
What the Company Says: ‘We have thousands of open positions at any given moment, and we intend to hire about 25,000 professionals in the next four years in the United States,’ says Ginni Rometty, the President and CEO of IBM. She states that a traditional college degree may not be required. ‘In fact, at a number of IBM’s locations spread across the United States, as many as one-third of employees don’t have a four-year degree. What matters most is that these employees – with jobs such as cloud computing technicians and services delivery specialists – have relevant skills, often obtained through vocational training.’
Sam Ladah, IBM’s head of talent, calls them ‘new-collar jobs’ in Fast Company. ‘We consider them based on their skills,’ he says. It’s about their technical knowledge, and not their degree or educational background. ‘We’ve been very successful in hiring from [coding] bootcamps,’ says Ladah.
Ladah’s comments are not surprising. Becoming a software developer doesn’t have to entail putting your life on hold for three to four years. You can find a tech job without a degree. In fact, a recent survey of over 1000 Human Resource managers conducted by Indeed, a well-known job site, found that 72% of graduates from bootcamps are ‘just as prepared’ and likely to be high performers as those holding degrees. In addition, 12% of HR managers surveyed thought bootcamp graduates are more prepared and more likely to be high performers than those with Computer Science degrees.
Image Source: http://blog.indeed.com/2017/05/02/what-employers-think-about-coding-bootcamp/
If you’re not keen on four years of studying, consider a bootcamp, where, according to Business Insider, the sole goal is ‘to take in students with minimal coding knowledge and shoot them back out a few months later as employable software engineers’. HyperionDev offers six-month, part-time online coding bootcamps in Full Stack Web Development, Mobile Development or Software Engineering. HyperionDev will help you get a tech job without a degree. Enroll today!
