Networking with colleagues, friends, and family can help tremendously.
According to the Washington Post, 2/3rds of the labor market does not have a bachelor’s degree.
Some company cultures have little to no bias around previous education. Take Michael Dell, he dropped out of college to start Dell Technologies back in 1984. By the way, did you know that Bill Gates, Ralph Lauren, Steve Madden, Steve Jobs, Sean Combs, Mark Zuckerberg, Rachel Ray, and Coco Chanel don’t have a degree either. Your education is simply not a predictor of future success potential. Some companies understand this.
Whether a company requires a bachelor’s degree can vary. For example, I know there is a very large scale hospital based out of Nashville that will not promote or hire anyone into a director+ role without a bachelor’s degree.
Some roles, the hiring managers will have a preference. For example, most Engineers want candidates who have a Computer Science degree and tend to show bias when someone went to a bootcamp vs a 4 year program.
Also, most companies do a terrible job with job descriptions. They often use male dominated terminology and have tons of requirements. Most job descriptions are written like the company is looking for a purple unicorn. Often many of the requirements are negotiable. When in doubt, apply and see what happens.
