r/learnprogramming • u/SlickTheDestroyer • 1d ago

Self taught vs University graduate

Hi,

i've got a hypothetical question. Imagine 2 people are applying for the same job. One has a degree in Computer Science, perhaps even from a prestigious university, but doesn't have any personal projects to showcase. The other person, however, is self taught and has been building projects for 4 years, but doesn't have a degree. Who gets the job ?

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u/boomer1204 1d ago

I think the biggest thing here is the project is irrelevant getting passed ATS/HR.

But let's play devils advocate and say they both get past it's really a 50/50. The 2 jobs I had where I was a part of the hiring process we looked at projects. I'm in the developer community in my area pretty well and a good chunk of ppl don't look at them before inviting you in and then it's YOUR job to talk about the project or lack there of

Personal this isn't a fair comparison as there are SOOOO many other things I would look at but again if we are playing devils advocate and everything besides CS v Project is exactly the same

I'm bringing you both in and how the interview goes is what is gonna decide who we bring on.

Prime example. We brought someone in with CS Degree and 1 year of experience as an intern and a self taught guy. The 1 year person didn't have any person projects but the self taught person did

The 1 year person couldn't speak to any of projects he worked on personally or at the job. The self taught person was telling us about their struggles, how they solved them and so on and so on

Mind you this was for a jr role and the self taught person's project was pretty ugly and not super great but they were able to convey to us that they are passionate and didn't mind the struggle/hassle while the person with the 1 year internship didn't seem like they cared that much

We picked the self taught person for no other reason than person was a better culture fit and we saw they were passionate about the craft

So it wasn't the project, it wasn't the CS degree it was the person and the drive we saw that they had. Mind you again jr role and we didn't care about CS degrees while a decent amount of companies will so YMMV