This won’t have been the first time I’ve written about degrees… But I recently noticed a job posting for a server-side developer at Headscape, and in just the third sentence it already got my back up:
We are looking for a graduate who is passionate about the web
This sort of thing in job postings really annoy me. The notion that a degree makes a person better than someone with 3+ years of experience to me is a very narrow-minded way of thinking. Many employers use this sort of thing as a “first line of defence” tactic – to eliminate applicants that are clearly not suited to the job. However, there are many great developers out there with no degree, but many years of experience.
I asked an employee of Headscape about this, and he summarised that he expects they would consider those without degrees. Perhaps because I don’t have a degree it touches a raw nerve with me, because I’ve been very lucky to get where I am.
I got on the “software development ladder” through a good opportunity, because I had zero “years experience” and no degree, and from an employers perspective, a pretty risky option. Because I was given that chance, I now have over 6 years of professional development experience. Others in my 2003 situation might not be so lucky, and because employers require things like degrees, it makes those starter developers chances of getting even a junior job even harder.
It seems an odd concept to me that to get on that ladder, you must spend 4 years at university, wasting money and time, learning what you already know… In this industry* I would disagree that a degree is required, so why do employers still require that candidates have degrees? To me, all a degree does is prove that you can think analytically, but to even learn a programming language properly, you have to think analytically and logically anyway, so surely if you can prove you know the language, you therefore also prove that you can think analytically…
I’d like to see what other people think about this, maybe I’m a minority on this view? 
* I specify in this industry because certain other professions, such as medical, I would say that a degree is required.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Perhaps there’s another way of looking at it?
These days, by the time you get your degree, you are (at the most) only 8 or 9 years away from being 30 AND you are probably in debt to the tune of (at least) £20,000. A few celebratory pints and some thinking later, it will dawn on you that you will probably *still* be in debt to the government for your ‘ever-so-shiny education’ when the day of your 30th birthday comes, and then inevitably, goes fleetingly by.
Over time this realisation will likely leave you feeling desperate, helpless and duped. You will be filled with the urge to ‘get out there, get a job and work your tiny-little-socks off’ in order to rub that smug and mocking grin off the faces of those deemed worthy to ‘grant you’ that seemingly necessary ‘piece of [graduation] paper’.
Employers want employees who will work their tiny-little-socks off. And so the government provides.