Jobs Series
Let us get this out of the way before anyone gets the wrong idea about where this article is headed. My aim is not to drivel on about the value of a college degree nor glorify the college dropout.
I want to share some views on why the modern technology landscape has ample room for both degree holders and dropouts. And, speaking of college dropouts, they are climbing a steep hill. It can suck to be a college dropout in the U.S.
A lot of people drop out of college. From The Cost of Being a College Dropout we can see that “... 70% of Americans will study at a four-year college, but less than two-thirds will graduate with a degree. Thirty percent of college freshmen drop out after their first year of school.”
“Eighty-nine percent of low-income first-generation students leave school without a degree, four times the rate for second-generation students.”
Under ideal or even normal circumstances, it is a great idea to go to college and get a degree. It does not even matter if it is a social science or art history degree. It does not matter if it puts you $150,000 in debt. Well, it sort of does matter if the degree is an irrecoverable expenditure as opposed to an investment but that is another topic.
You have nothing better to do from ages 17-21 so go to college and stay there until they give you that magical credential. By doing so, you will likely join the class of Americans who earn 57 percent of all wages. Get a degree and you will earn more money.
What exactly is the impact of the wage differences between a college dropout and a degree holder? According to the Economic Policy Institute, the dropout makes an average hourly wage of $19.41 while the average hourly wage for people with college degrees is $32.40.
Lately, there have been many articles and even books written about the uselessness of college degrees. The media likes to tell glorified stories of college dropouts who went on to become titans of industry.
But, do a lot of very successful people really not have college degrees? In a study of almost 12,000 successful leaders, it turns out that the vast majority of the wealthiest and most influential people went to college.
In fact, there is no question or doubt that the elites went to elite colleges and universities. Jonathan Wai has conducted extensive research into where the CEOs of every Fortune 500 company went to school.
But, what about the non-elites in the workforce? We can see from this Big Think article that there are over 34 million Americans over the age of 25 with some college credits but no degree.
This group is 70 percent more likely to be unemployed and over 4x more likely to default on their student loans (i.e., saddled with debt and bad credit score). College dropouts make up about 20 percent of the total U.S. workforce. A study of the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans shows that less than 10 percent are college dropouts.
Those are the doom and gloom realities. But, what about the other side? Is there even another side? Absolutely.
THE DROPOUT PATH
College is the steadiest, most reliable path to a white collar job. There is nothing wrong with that path. Every parent would love for their child to grow up and settle into a steady, reliable job. The whole point of parenthood is to reduce uncertainties for their offspring.
The college dropout struggles with the traditional path. The dropout has to, by necessity, pursue unconventional paths. Or, they are forced into low wage jobs in the service sector, blue collar jobs, or self-employment. A few who are lucky enough will find a way to start small businesses that succeed.
However, I am amazed that almost everyone I talk to considers a job in tech as a conventional white collar job - an enclave for degree holders. Since it is technology (after all), they believe you need a computer science or engineering degree. Or, if working on the non-technical side of the house, you need a degree along with substantial experience in a similar tech job. This is simply not true.
I have worked with so many college dropouts in the tech industry that I know for a fact that it is not true. I have hired a lot of college dropouts myself. Sure, they are in the minority but I can promise you that they were not only equally as skilled as those with degrees but many were far superior by every measure that mattered.
THE BLUE COLLAR STARTUP
Why are college dropouts worth hiring for a startup? For me, there were two factors that made hiring dropouts pretty safe.
First, the undergraduate degree for non-technical jobs at tech companies have very little explicit value or applicability. The degrees tell me something but does not prove anything.
Second, I would argue that there is an aspect of work especially at a startup that an adequately skilled and driven college dropout is better suited to tackle.
DEGREES SAY SOMETHING BUT PROVE NOTHING
Undergraduate degrees mattered when I was recruiting to fill a key but junior role. They matter because a lot of candidates for junior roles do not have relevant experience to evaluate.
For the degree to matter, it has to be earned from an elite school with very good grades. This is due to the fact that I am using the degree as an indicator of a person’s initiative, drive, and competitiveness. Anything less and I am not paying much attention. A political science degree from Northeastern University does not matter.
How would you evaluate a business administration degree from DePaul University against a social science degree from the Oregon State University? The truthful answer is that you cannot make anything out of them.
And, both degrees are almost completely useless for 99 percent of non-technical jobs at a tech startup. So, why are companies so hung up on the college degree?
The simple answer is because it is a way of narrowing the field. Said differently, it is a very easy qualifying (or, self selecting) criteria. Make the degree required and you instantly get “qualified” people applying. This idea is so flawed but people still apply it. It boggles my mind when I see a job posting that states “B.S. or B.A. degree required.”
As for the college dropout, they do carry some risks and those risks have to be removed. This adds time and effort to the entire hiring process. Does the dropout have good communication skills? Can she understand technical ideas and translate them into business literature? Are they able to analyze data using basic math and craft internal and external business cases? Meaning, are they critical thinkers?
Will she be dependable? Is she a quitter? She has not completed what she started (i.e., college) so isn’t that a red flag? Does she have a rocky or unstable aspect of her life that derailed her studies? All of these are in the back of hiring managers’ minds.
FINDING FIT FOR SKILLS, HUNGER, TALENT
A startup usually has a limited opportunity to hire well. Startups are severely restricted in the number of new headcount. In contrast, a medium- to large-sized company’s marketing department may be staffed by 140 people. This department will have 20 new hires this year.
If 3-5 of those new hires do not work out … oh well, the company and department will be fine. They will put them on a “performance improvement” plan and manage them out. Or, they may even move them laterally into another department.
Compare that to a startup that has recently raised $15MM in new funding and has a marketing department of 3-5 people. They are hiring two new people to fill newly created roles. These hires are absolutely critical.
In this situation, I am not even looking at the education section of the resume. If there is a fancy degree, it will catch my attention but it will not necessarily impress me. I want my universe of potential talent to be as wide and deep as possible.
In fact, I may wonder if it is worth going after the resume with an undergrad in computer science with an MBA in marketing from a non-elite business school. What if they think the role is beneath them?
I wonder if they will have misaligned values (i.e., they will compare the pay with an associate’s management consulting or i-banking pay). Are they focused on placing value on the wrong things?
Will the person get lost in PowerPoint and not know how to serve the field and sales teams - marketing’s internal clients. How will they handle losing? There’s often a lot of losing at a startup one must tolerate and even embrace before winning big. That is, the non-elite MBA can send me negative signals.
I have seen endless MBAs in tech who are masters at ‘managing up’ and producing reams of plans and strategy documents but cannot lift a finger to execute if their life depended on it.
These “high (academic) achievers” have as many risks as the college dropout. They are just different risks. These are all things that I have to get a feel for during the interviews. And, it is not good to have biases or blind filters on. Actual hands-on skill, hunger, and talent cannot be assessed via resume no matter how impressive the words or degrees.
WHY ARE DROPOUTS NOT APPLYING?
I do not think enough qualified candidates without a degree apply for jobs at tech companies. My suspicion is that most of them talk themselves out of it or had too many bad experiences with poor HR people.
They talk themselves out of it because they either (a) overestimate the qualifications of others or (b) underestimate their own qualifications. As for bad experiences with HR people, I have to remind all candidates one simple truth: HR’s role in recruiting is to screen candidates. And, it is easy to screen based on credentials such as degrees. I wrote about how tech jobs get filled in another article.
My advice would be to avoid even going after those types of jobs. I am not crazy enough to tell you to avoid HR people altogether. That would be utter nonsense. Avoid them in the beginning when you are trying to get a foot in the door. The HR door is like a bank’s vault - you will not crack it.
This is why I am such a big believer in an inbound sellers approach to finding, cultivating, and developing career opportunities. Your goal is to connect with people like me.
Hiring executives and managers are less likely to screen on paper credentials and more likely to tease out hidden, actual talent (current capability plus future capacity). Find ways to connect with those people.
Connect through the B2B demand generation platform and approach, though. Do not cold call them by email or social media with a nearly empty resume as that will be far worse than going through the conventional HR route.
For example, all of the jobs that are posted on LinkedIn also lists the job poster. Click on the profile of the job poster. Many startup jobs are posted by founders, CEOs, VPs, and Directors. Go after those jobs.
Follow the company. Interact with the person’s postings and comments in a professional manner. Send a connect request expressing your interest in the space their company addresses. These are opportunities to build your initial mailing list. Be surgical in your writing.
Hiring executives in charge of teams hire based on strengths. HR people are trained to help hire based on a lack of weaknesses. Not having a degree is a weakness. Play offense and play to your strengths.
IS THE JOB AS EASY AS YOU CLAIM?
The short answer is YES BUT. There are basic skills and traits you need to have in order to succeed. But, those are the same skills and traits you will need to be sufficiently self-employed or run your own business.
Back in the 1990s, I knew nothing about technology when I got started in this world. I responded to a classified ad from some company I had never heard of. The ad said I needed to have experience with database management, direct mail campaigns, and a few other things. I still remember the database and direct mail stuff because they frightened me.
I went to the job interview anyway. The hiring manager gave me a shot. I was given some quick training on how to use their contact database (Access), instructions on mail merge, and given a tour of the mail room where the collateral bins were located along with a small but menacing Pitney Bowes machine.
I just spent all day and night, seven days a week reading everything I could get my hands on. Every old and new white paper, product data sheets, market research report, every sales collateral, and even the books sitting in our field sales engineers’ cubicles. On weekends, I would go to the computers aisle at every bookstore in the city and devour as many pages as I could.
Eventually, you get better and better. Colleagues start to explain things. Before you know it, you are actually doing the job. I was always a decent writer. But, business communication is a different beast. There is a certain style that is expected. Ask your manager to Bcc you on as many internal business exchanges as possible so you can get a feel for how people communicate.
A college dropout is equally capable at picking all of this up as the history major from Ohio State University. The degree is absolutely meaningless. But, the job is only easy for those who have certain personality traits.
Are you ambitious and driven in the right way (e.g., excited by being an important contributor to a winning team vs. getting individual accolades, highest pay, and fancy job titles). Do you embrace the idea of sacrifice followed by delayed satisfaction and rewards? Are you really hungry to find out how far you can go?
These are all questions that need to be explored and they are all not degree-related.
PLAY OFFENSE, NOT DEFENSE
My recommendation for college dropouts thinking about pursuing a career in tech:
Have the right game plan. Go on offense. Do not play defense or be defensive.
Sell yourself by positioning yourself around your strengths and the fit you seek.
Build an online platform (aka You-as-a-Service) around that positioning and let that platform speak on your behalf; evidence vs. claims; proof-of-work vs. credentials.
Develop inbound interest from startups and have a long view.
Measure what you create and do (production-orientation) and not get preoccupied with end outcomes (results-orientation).
The tech industry is always growing, innovating, and damn thirsty for the best possible talent in the world. Do not let not having a degree or lack of job experience get between you and a highly rewarding and lucrative career in a hyper fast-moving, exciting growth industry.
Get razor focused on your strengths, game plan, and stand up your YaaS platform. I want reader’s to have a big entry in their resumes that highlight the YaaS building and development! That is a special type of experience on a resume - the most powerful kind.
Follow me at @racheleesthinks on Twitter and spread the word about this newsletter to friends and colleagues. There will be a lot of people who will benefit from reading my newsletter next year. The nuclear winter for jobs is coming in 2023. Get ready.