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Lacking In A College Degree: Market Your Experience Instead

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Can work experience make up for the lack of a degree? It's a perennial question that dogs employers and job seekers alike. However, there have been extremely successful people, who have had very lucrative and fulfilling careers, without a college degree.

There have people who have used their work experience to climb the career ladder, rung by rung, using their work experience at each job to leverage them to a better job.

There have been umpteen cases of people without college degrees, writing books, serving on Fortune 500 companies and even running their own newspapers. The sky is the limit.



One would be forgiven to assume, that with such an imposing and remarkable career background, their educational background would be likewise striking. All of them lacked a college degree. But they made for that deficiency in their resume, by keeping all avenues open to gain experience, through conferences, seminar, job training classes and even tailing friends at work.

This disproves the common belief that you need to have a college degree to be gainfully employed. These success stories bring relief and hope to the 46.6 of the labor force who do not have a school diploma and the 69.9 percent who lack a college degree, a few years ago. This is not to say that a college degree is of no consequence and irrelevant, it certainly is important, but more important than the degree is what you learn and how you apply that knowledge.

There are many myths regarding a college degree that need to be dispelled. Prime amongst that it is no golden ticket or master key that will open all doors automatically that will give them unhindered entrance to their dream worlds.

Moreover employers think that degrees, such as English literature, humanities, sociology and liberal arts do little to prepare the student for the realistic no-nonsense world. What counts here, are a feisty attitude, first impressions and know-how, more than a diploma.

Most of those who have made a success of their lives without the luxury of a degree say that never felt disadvantaged at not have a college degree. They said that more often than not, experience and not education is what employers look for in their prospective employees. As long as they are convinced that you will do justice to the job, you'll be hired. All the job-applicant has to do after that is not to belie his employer's faith and work hard to make a success of the responsibility entrusted to you.

These are some of the guidelines you can follow, if you do not have a college degree and are seeking a job.

1) Be a Crisis Manager:

Don't be part of the herd that graduates only to be able to read books and answer questions. Instead tell your employer how you can be a crisis manager and a problem solver. You'll take a leap ahead of other competitors in the job line.

2) Self-Made Man

Demonstrate to your employer that you are a self-made professional and that you have hands-on experience as compared to the more educated peers who are also vying for the same jobs. Employers will be impressed that without a degree, you have actually made it so far.

3) Continued Education

Tell your employer that you dropped out of college, for reasons that were more economic and beyond your control and that you have every intention of filling in that lacuna in your resume, if the company so desires. Many companies have systems in place that allow employees to upgrade their academic qualifications and employers are impressed by employees wanting to fill resume lacunas.

4) No Hue and Cry

Convince yourself that not having a college degree is not such a big deal after all and that it does not make you any less than your more elitist peers. By doing so, you will convey the same impression to your employers. Your confidence and self-belief will catch the interviewer's attention and engulf him as well. Moreover, no company will not hire, a worker who they feel fits their bill, irrespective of whether he has a college degree or lacks one.

5) Give Your Achievements More Priority

Skip the part about the degree and talk about your other strengths. Provide information about times in the past, where your experience helped you accomplish tasks that seemed impossible to surmount. Show that you are better than others when it comes to doing tough assignments. Give specific examples of how you have accomplished certain things.

6) Document Your Triumphs,

During the interview showcase the many times you have accomplished tasks on par with, if not better than those who have a college degree. Tell them, for example of the time, when you helped the company uncover accounting errors and saved the company a lot of money, which the trained accountant couldn't. Talk about yourself being an experienced hand.

7) Create An Amalgamated Résumé

Mention in your resume the contributions that you made, through your skills and achievements to your previous employers. Let it not be the conventional resume, but a combination of both. It must mention the skills and experience that you will be bringing to your new workplace. By mentioning your skills and experience in the first half of your resume, you will capture the employer's attention, and probably he will not need to read the latter half, to decide that you are the right person for the job.
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