A Question of Degrees

June 8, 2011 12:19 PM

Associate's Degree--enough to get the job?

If I were looking to make a switch to a career as a systems administrator, would an associate's degree in computer information systems be enough to get my foot in the door at an entry-level job? Or do I need a bachelor's degree to break into the industry? I have never held the title of systems admin at any previous job, but do have some related (if unofficial) job experience. I also have a bachelor's in another field and a graduate degree in information resources and library science.

Thanks in advance!

posted by anonnymoose to Work & Money (8 answers total)

In my region it's tough to get an entry-level IT job even with a bachelor's and the expected stack of certifications. Three years ago, though, I got into an entry-level job with no degree and just an A+. With the current economic climate, I think experience will help you more than paper.
posted by richrad at 12:23 PM on June 8, 2011

With all your experience in other fields and your existing education you probably wouldn't even need an associates degree in CIS to land a job as a system administrator. You might just have to hunt a bit harder.

When I landed my first real career with a similar job title as what you're looking for all I had was a highschool diploma, the ability to interview well and a few lame certifications.
posted by zephyr_words at 12:25 PM on June 8, 2011

I don't think an AS helps you if you already have a Master's degree. If anything, it would look a little weird. Related and unofficial experience can certainly be put on your resume. The resume is a sales document. It needs to be truthful, but if you were in fact the acting sys admin even though you title is something different, it is completely ok to highlight that experience on your resume. Likewise, any volunteer work you may have done in that capacity is fair game too.
posted by COD at 12:46 PM on June 8, 2011

The degree shows you can make a plan and stick with it for several years. Yours make that statement loudly.

IF you have relevant experience to go along with it, it's added to the above. If you have additional experience to go with it, it's added to the above. You are no disadvantage because your degree is not a perfect match for the job. Most recent graduates have no experience in anything, including WORK, so you have something to distinguish you, already. Telling employers you are looking to make a career change is perfectly legit, and reasonable, but like all job hunts, expect competition.

I disagree (politely and with great respect) with COD that it looks weird, but it does beg the question... if you are going to spend two years, why not complete a BS? You've more than finished the general college requirements, and in NC (the only state with which I am familiar) a number of colleges offer supplemental (second) Bachelor's degrees with the two years, only. (NC has several good colleges dedicated to the perfection of basketball and such!) Certainly other states have colleges with similar second bachelor's programs. Just a thought. I heartily agree with COD that non-paid experience can be pumped, if true and supportable.
posted by FauxScot at 1:22 PM on June 8, 2011

I got a game programming job (my first) recently because of the things you mentioned. Mainly personal projects, lots of enthusaism, and knowing a few people.

During the interview process I was asked to submit code samples and did a code test. It was kind of grueling.

The main thing is knowing people at the job you're applying for, or having a network. It was because of this that the guy doing the hiring knew I had the chops, rather than looking at the resume and seeing "AS" rather than "BS" and tossing it aside. Near the end he said I had the best code out of all the applicants.

His main reservation about me having the AS was not having a proper background in data structures and algorithms, something I would have to learn on my own. But since the IT industry is more "hands on" than theoretical, this shouldn't be a problem for you.

So it can be done, and the IT industry is a lot easier to break into than the game industry. Be sure to put those personal projects on there. If you have a twitter account, live blog every little IT thing you do, so your followers will be like "Oh annoymoose, that's the IT guy on twitter" and they're more likely to introduce you to their friends who work in IT. Not guaranteeing anything, but that's how it happened to me.

So network (read: make friends), do personal stuff and put it on your resume. Showing enthusiasm gets you pretty far.
posted by hellojed at 1:46 PM on June 8, 2011

Recently I evaluated a candidate that had managed to sneak past our HR's filters by putting the phrase "worked 4 years towards a Bachelor's degree" in his resume. The computer may have not noticed that he wasn't actually saying he got the degree, just that he spent 4 years trying, but I sure did. We decided on another candidate based purely on technical skills demonstrated during the interview process, but if we'd come down to two otherwise equal candidates, one with a degree, and one who just worked on one, we would have gone with the real degree.

All that is to say your Associates degree would have guaranteed you didn't even make the first interview since HR was filtering for Bachelors, IF it was your only degree. If you already have one BA or BS, that would be all I needed to see to prove your stick-to-it-iveness, and an associates would be wasted window dressing. I'm going to test you on your technical skills myself, any degree proves some level of responsibility.
posted by nomisxid at 2:13 PM on June 8, 2011

Wait...are you considering getting your AS? Because if so, I'd say it's definitely not worth it. An associate's is mostly for non-academic types without college degrees who need to get a piece of paper to make it past HR. You already have 2 degrees, you'll make it past HR just fine. The time and money you would spend on an AS would be better be spent building technical skills on your own.

In my experience, sysadmins (even high-level, highly-paid people) aren't required to have college degrees at all. A lot of sysadmins have eclectic training in completely unrelated things; I've known sysadmin musicians, sysadmin PhD biologists, sysadmins who spend every non-work moment racing cars, etc. You do need to have rock-solid technical skills, but that's more a labor of love than something you can get through formal education.
posted by miyabo at 8:41 PM on June 8, 2011

If you've got a bachelors and Master's degree, an AS is likely unessecary. I have known sysadmins with only AS degrees, making quite a good deal of money, but they hired much further back in time, and personally I felt the shop as a whole was "behind the times."

Personally, I'd go for certifications, since you will be working with specific technologies, not the idea of technology. If you haven't done so, start looking for And definitely bone up your portfolio. In this day and age, employers are less willing to take a risk on unproven people. A portfolio might consist of:
* A functioning personal website / server (one free option is Amazon EC2, and you can say you have experience with The Cloud!)
* writing & documentation ie a Blog
* Failures. For better or worse, a good chunk of sysadmin work is dealing with failure. I've got useful stories of being hacked, losing data, etc and steps I've taken to reduce / eliminate it in the future.
* shell scripts and annotated configuration files

If you've truly got related experience it should be fairly easy to pull some of this together. If you're still performing those duties, I'd imagine all of it is possible.
posted by pwnguin at 10:29 PM on June 8, 2011 [1 favorite]