a college degree

[niharlin]

Do I need a college degree to be considered?

[AussieWebmaster]

experience and a good interview will land you a job in this industry

[BasicECommerce]

A firm grasp of English and promotional writing help when writing keywords and ad text.

-BEC

[Misscj]

Some companies do however ask for a degree in a related subject like business, marketing or computing. Depends who you work for. I'm seen this mostly for big corporates.

It's true that not every employer will demand it. I do think personally that a degree always helps you along, and it really doesn't hurt to have one.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

It doesn't hurt to have one, but the process of trying to get one (if you balance it with doing a lot of SEO and not losing your social life) can hurt a lot LOL.

I think the thing about SEO (just like sales) is that your level of skill can be quantified really easily. If you got two SEOs who've been working in the same industry and one of the two has been able to generate twice the amount of sales, but doesn't have a college degree and the other one does who do you pick? I'll pick the one who generated twice as much revenue.

If you work in sales and need to fill a position and have two choices: Take the person that has sold 50.000 units and has a PhD in the field or the person who sold 100.000+ units and didn't graduate from high school, who are you going to pick? I'll pick the one who sells more.

There's often the point that "having completed a college degree shows that you can stick to a project and complete it", which I think is true. But then again if you've taught yourself SEO from scratch and are able to rank sites, I guess you've pretty much proven the same thing.

So technically, in a field such as SEO (where performance can be quantified so well), I think smart people (who do SEO themselves)won't considr a college degree very important.

However, I think in order to get a job that way you must learn all the stuff about SEO and online marketing, build a site from scratch and turn it into a profitable site. If you can do that, then whether or not you have a college degree probably doesn't matter a lot.

However, that's a lot easier said than done and if you got a college degree (in a "related" field..business/marketing/IT) you can probably land a job in SEO with minimal knowledge if you only show that you're really interested in it.

So, I'd say: If you're a great SEO already it doesn't matter whether you have a college degree or not.

But if you're just starting out getting a college degree in some subject is probably the safer way. That way you just have to show the college degree and a big interest in SEO and you should have good chances to get hired.

Anyone disagrees with this? just curious, because those are my own perceptions...that if you got a college degree just showing a big interest in the field can land you a job as an "SEO". Whereas if you don't have a college degree, you better have lots of skills already.

[Misscj]

"it doesn't hurt to have one, but the process of trying to get one (if you balance it with doing a lot of SEO and not losing your social life) can hurt a lot LOL."

I've been doing it for 5 years while I've been working on my Phd, and I run, do yoga everyday and see all my friends too.

I don't have a cape or any superpowers! I know a lot of people who work and study. You just function in a higher gear maybe, but it's totally doable, and not even half as awful as you might think.

The trick is to enjoy what you do. Don't let working put you off studying and vice versa.

I completely agree about choosing the person with the most talent, at that point I'd choose the dude without the degree as well if he was better. A Phd is a tricky thing though, it's not like a degree or a masters, it's really really specialised, so chances are if you're hiring a Phd you have something specific in mind.

All in all though NKOTB is right. Whether you go the academic route or not, you're still going to have to work quite hard to learn everything, but it's actually quite a blast whatever you decide :)

[shinny]

no loss in having one:):)