No college degree? Score your dream job at these companies
Individuals without a college degree should no longer feel barred from landing their dream jobs in the workforce.
In fact, as the job market heats up, an increasing number of top companies are hiring for positions without necessarily requiring applicants have one, according to data aggregated by job search site GlassDoor.
Here are four premiere companies looking beyond the traditional four-year degree when evaluating potential candidates.
From its headquarters in Mountain View, California, to locations in Texas, Chicago and more, Google is hiring for a slew of positions without requiring interested jobseekers have a higher education degree. According to GlassDoor, current open positions include product manager, software engineer, mechanical engineer, positions within its burgeoning cloud business, and more.
As of 2013, as many as 14 percent of individuals on some teams at Google did not have a college education.
Ernst & Young
Professional and investment services firm Ernst & Young also employs workers without college degrees. The company announced the change at its U.K. offices in 2015, opting instead to assess candidates based on online assessments. The company did say academic achievement would still be factored in to the overall hiring process, it would just not be the main concern. The firm said at the time there was “no evidence” correlating success at a university with success later in life.
According to GlassDoor, Ernst & Young is looking for workers to fill roles ranging from risk adviser to auditor and payroll operations analyst.
Apple
Tech giant Apple is another place that doesn’t require workers to have a college degree to land the gig. The company does want applicants to have relevant work experience if they did not go on for higher education – according to GlassDoor listings – meaning jobseekers can land the job if they are qualified, regardless of where those qualifications comes from.
The company rates highly among employees when it comes to overall satisfaction, scoring a four out of five, according to the job site’s review rankings.
Open positions include iPhone buyer, design engineer and engineer project manager.
IBM
The CEO of multinational tech company IBM, Ginni Rometty, wrote in a 2016 opinion piece that the company was struggling to fill its open tech positions, which she considers to be part of a wave of “new collar” jobs. Those modern openings, she wrote, “may not require a traditional college degree.” As of late 2016, Rometty said as many as one-third of employees at IBM locations across the U.S. didn’t have traditional four-year degrees. Having the required skill set is more relevant, she said.
IBM has a vocational training program, and has participated in White House attempts to expand workforce training efforts.
Open jobs at IBM include client solutions executive, financial blockchain engineer and contract and negotiations professional.
Others
Chipotle, Home Depot, Bank of America and Nordstrom were among 11 other companies GlassDoor cited as places where interested jobseekers could apply, regardless of their academic qualifications.