How To Find Work Without a College Degree

College degrees are no longer equivalent to success, but finding a job without one isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Professionals without degrees need to bolster their resume in other ways, highlighting their skills, job-specific certifications, and a willingness to learn. Two career experts share their advice on the powers of skills and how best to market yourself for new opportunities, degree or no degree.

By Mariah Flores

We often confine ourselves to extremely traditional ways of thinking when it comes to the career space.?

A person graduates high school, attends college and obtains a four-year undergraduate degree, and then magically gets whisked off to a successful professional career — having followed the widely-accepted trajectory of most working professionals.?

Or so we’re conditioned to believe.

“[W]e have been telling young folks and others ‘If you want to make something of yourself, you better go to college.’ And guess what? We've internalized that in our talent management systems,” says Maurice Jones , chief executive officer at OneTen , a coalition of chief executives and their companies formed to break through barriers to economic opportunity and mobility.

“Now it's almost one of these invisible pieces that we just look for in our applications because we've always done it … We buy into the mantra that if you want to make something of yourself, you better get that four-year degree.”

LinkedIn News recently reported on the logic that everyone needs a four-year degree for a successful career, going as far as to highlight many esteemed individuals who’ve all found great success without an undergraduate degree.?

“Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Rachael Ray, Kanye West, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ryan Seacrest, Steve Madden, Alicia Keys. These are names that need no introduction, and whose celebrity status occupy industries ranging from tech to entertainment to fashion design,” said Helen Harris, LinkedIn News reporter.

Now, this is no newfound conversation and I’m certainly not trying to sway anyone from pursuing their dreams of acquiring a college degree . In fact, as Harris noted in her related #GetAhead piece, certain professional fields, like medicine, law, finance, education, etc., do require undergraduate degrees and potentially higher education beyond.

But for those who don’t have a college degree or are unsure whether to pursue one, consider this a helpful resource.??

Marketability of Skills

Credentials, like degrees or certifications , only go so far if you don’t have the skills needed for a certain profession or role. It’s time to start putting skills first , an approach that Jones has discussed on several occasions, including at a virtual event hosted by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

“What [a skills-first culture] means is that when you think about the talent journey: applying, getting hired, getting assessed and evaluated, getting performance evaluations, ultimately getting promotions and advancements, the notion of skills-first is that the dominant factor of success in each one of those stops along the journey or in the journey itself is skills, right?” he shares with me.?

“When we are hiring, we're looking for the skills that people need on day one, which means as a company, we have to be able to translate our jobs not into credentials, but into the actual skills needed to do the job.”

So the question arises: “If you don't have a college degree, how do you find a role making good money at the next level in your career?”?

Simple, build your skills set and embrace constant learning.

As a job candidate and prospective talent, set yourself up for better opportunities and invest in professional training that will directly build skills needed for specific jobs. Jones recommends talent work to understand the skills employers want for particular jobs and where they can go to acquire such skills.

“It could be a boot camp on coding or it could be a certification or license you can get from a community college, or it could be experience that you can get from a particular job opportunity. If I'm talent, I'm trying to find those places where I can actually get both experience and become a learner of the skills. The other thing that I'm doing is I'm really focusing on not just technical skills, but what we call the durable [soft] skills .”

Use Your Skills Advantage

Demisha Jennings , an esteemed career strategist and resume writer, works with an assortment of clients, some of whom have college degrees and the other half who don’t. She has seen firsthand how the half who don’t are still very successful, some making upwards of six figures.

Jennings herself doesn’t have a college degree and that hasn’t impacted her flourishing career, something she preaches all the time.?

“If you don't have a college degree, how do you find a role making good money at the next level in your career? It literally all boils down to value proposition,” she says. “What can you bring to the table to add value to the company? That's what they care about more than any degree.”

And yes, a degree absolutely adds value, Jennings acknowledges. But there’ll be instances where people interviewing for a role have that two- or four-year college degree and still lack desirable soft skills, like basic people skills .

“Then we have a college or non-college graduate who may come in [for the role] and they don't have all of the experience, but they have a good personality, they're trainable and they have a lot of transferable skills.”

Honing in on those transferable and soft skills can get you that position you’ve been eyeing without a degree and even help you easily change careers , according to Jennings.

?Forbes covers seven of the best transferable skills , including:?

• Technical (like technological competence)
• Communication
• Critical Thinking
• Multitasking
• Teamwork
• Creativity
• Leadership

“Development of transferable skills will be repaid with job offers, better job security and improved professional horizons. When you are seen to embody them in your work and in the ways that you interact with the people of your professional world, you will become known and respected as a consummate professional, and this can dramatically differentiate your candidacy,” reports Forbes.

Without a college degree, skills become your superpower when finding work.

Top Careers Without a College Degree

Okay, you’ve built up your skills, obtained various certifications, connected with mentors , networked , bolstered your LinkedIn profile , etc.? Whatever your journey to finding work without a college degree, it’s also important to be aware of the best career opportunities out there.?

U.S. News rated 25 Best Jobs That Don’t Require a College Degree , which include:?

• Flight attendant
• Maintenance and repair worker
• Electrician
• Insurance sales agent
• Medical assistant
• Massage therapist
• Firefighter
• Patrol officer

As you begin searching for meaningful work without a college degree, remember that your skill set , hard or soft, is your strength. This is how you’ll market yourself, from the initial interview stage all the way to future promotions.

Top Takeaways?

Finding work without a college degree is all about maximizing other aspects of your professional traits:

• Modern hiring practices are focusing on skills , which is great for those without college degrees.
• Talent and job seekers should focus on building their skill set and achievements, through training, certifications and current job opportunities.
• Several career paths don’t require traditional college degrees.??