Does Anyone Do a Job They Have Zero Qualifications For?!?!

I'm a Product Manager in a tech company, my undergrad degree is Marine Biology and Coastal Ecology. I just kind of fell into it after university and I get paid a lot more than I would as an academic!

But yeah I got a job in my company initially in customer service and worked my way up.

It's fairly common for accountants to not be qualified, having never done the exams. If they've been doing it for many years they are considered "qualified by experience".

Life?

There’s a guy I know who doesn’t he’s had various jobs, currently he looks after budgets with no qualifications in them. His boss is just as bad though.

Yup. Science all the way through school with an eye to do medicine until I messed up my A levels, so did Biochemistry as a bridge. A degree in that and the mind numbing work of NHS and research biochemistry beat to death any desire I had for being a doctor so I went and worked in a computer shop.

30 years later and I do cybersecurity. I still have yet to do a formal course in it. One day people will find out about this and I will never work in this field again. I can't wait.

Any of the recent prime ministers

Qualifications! - I've got x2 CSE's so I'm not sure I'm qualified for anything! 🤣

Got 40 years experience in the print trade though.

I'm a Practice Manager in a GP surgery, I'm the boss for 25 members of support staff, three salaried doctors and four nurses and associated staff , and I look after the business [of a ltd company with well over a £million turnover] and the good deal of the personal affairs of the four partners. Supplementary to that I control the finances of a group of local GP practices that employs a further 20 or so folks, and has a turnover well into the multiple millions. I'm responsible for H&S, training, HR and the complex regulatory affairs that being a medical practice requires in the UK, and ultimately I answer to the many thousands of our patients.

There is no formal training at all for the role, and there's no regulatory body that supervises me, or judges whether I'm fit or able.

Yes of course.  In IT, the industry doesn't really require official qualifications and whilst many developer types have Computer Science degrees, a lot don't (including me) and it's not really needed. They just care about what you can do.

🙋 Civil servants, assemble!

I’m a University full Professor. Yes I have a PhD, but I have no formal teaching qualifications. I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, but for that I just had to put together a 5000 word reflective piece of all the teaching I’d done.

However, I do care about my teaching so I have attended some voluntary courses to improve but give no qualifications. Quite a few of my colleagues do hold a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) but that wasn’t offered at my Uni at that point of my career and wasn’t deemed an issue for my progression.

I do have qualifications for what I do; subject relevant masters and bachelors degrees, professional qualifications including one fellowship and another on the way, plus my various employers have invested in me. For instance I'm about to do my Programme management quals. and I've only been in this job 3 months

I'd say that I've learned more by doing my job, the qualifications just makes it easier.

There's also the question of how do you learn?

I'm kinaesthetic learner (learn by doing) so anything I pick in a taught environment has to be applied or it doesn't sink in, i wouldn't be surprised if most on here without quals are the same

I have a degree in Chemistry, worked as a chemist (synthetic organic chemistry, actual lab work!) for a few years.

I'm now a Transport Planner (the role actually involves a fair chunk of data analysis and it's more overall transport strategy but it's not remotely related to chemistry and I have no formal qualifications in it.

Go figure.

My family has a lot of teachers and professors - Mum, Dad, uncles, aunts etc - who are obsessed with getting people educated and qualified so I obviously antagonised them by proposing that most qualifications were pointless and that training was better than education once you had established the basics of reading and writing. The key thing was to train the person to thinks about the problems and develop an approach to resolving or avoiding them and there is no qualification for this.

One uncle, an Ofsted Inspector, even went as far as doing a mock interview with me as if I was a teacher to show how little I knew and how important the training and qualifications were. Even he admitted that my answers would have been good enough not to raise any red flags if it had been a real Ofsted interview.

So, is there any real use for qualifications other than being handy 'notes of promise' to show that someone has spent enough time to pass the exam, even if they have never done the job?

Feels like it, yes.

I've never been trained in any formal engineering procedures or techniques, despite having two degrees in engineering from a redbrick, and really needing formal engineering procedure knowledge in my current role.

Everything IT here, 1 of a team of 2 looking after many branches and ~300 staff around the world

highest qualification I have is a HND in design and production engineering...

I have a dual degree in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (not 2x degrees, although it felt like it, just the option to use BSc or BEng) and a Masters in Engineering.

I spent 5 years during the downturn in the energy sector working in TV. The first weeks of which was spent holding up cables and asking what they were called / used for. I knew the principles of photography as a hobbyist, but had zero qualifications for it other than that! Ended up quite well paid and lots of fun. If I was single and / or 10 years younger I might have stuck with it. But unless your household does something similar you never see them.

MrsTH is a business analyst for a major bank.

She’s a Marine Biologist, by degree.

Don’t worry. The main reason to go to university is so you can really understand how useless the education is.

You are actively working in carbon composite, on the shop floor, on real world problems.

Likely at most UK uni’s they give you textbook training that is 10yrs or so out of date.

Best training is to switch through 3 or so similar CO’s and learn how they do things better / worse, while building up further theoretical knowledge from books and your peers, alongside fixing big **** ups as they happen.

I realise as I age it doesn’t matter what industry or role you are in. Everything is basically a sales job and very few have a decent training in that. Even more so the more senior you get.

Ecology degree

I'm the lab manager / Next Generation Sequencing specialists, in a molecular biology / genetics research lab in Glasgow University. When people are talking at me in the lab, I pretend I understand what they're saying and nod knowingly, a lot.

Shhh, someone's coming...

there isnt a budget for training, but more so, the company fear that if they train people, they will leave for another job

So the flip side of that is that they are guaranteeing you a job for life in return? Yes? You've got that in writing I presume 😉

I have a degree in Biotech and I work in retail! No qualifications needed for my role and I manage 70+ colleagues and a turn over of around €20million. Been working for them about 35 years now and still not been found out. God help them!  Anyone could do my role and most are promoted from within as they know the workings/role expectations etc.

I guess I am qualified for what I do as a job. Programme Manager by trade, but worked my way up from web developer/computer programmer/engineer, through project manager.

I have a degree in Business Information Technology, although I got an E in my GCSE IT!

Whilst PRINCE2, Agile etc. are all useful professional qualifications to lean on, in reality everyone seems to run a bit of an amalgamation of them on actual projects.

Based on interview experieince i.e. me interviewing people, I'd much rather have someone who has good solid experience of doing the job as opossed to formal qualifications.

I'm a software engineer at a big SF based fintech startup - no formal computer science background, entirely self taught. I have a Mechanical Engineering degree and did that for my job for the first 5 years after university.

I learned software development just out of personal interest and eventually jacked in the Engineering job to move to a software agency and I've been doing it ever since. I can't quite believe that I get to do a job that I would still consider an enjoyable hobby if I weren't being paid.

I have an Engineering degree and an MBA and I work part-time in a shop selling whisky and hardware 😁

Likely at most UK uni’s they give you textbook training that is 10yrs or so out of date.

Very unlikely, Uni's invest a lot into providing access to current materials, not just in physical copies, but in huge online repositories. When i was doing my masters we were using contemporary case studies and bang up to date theories and methodologies.

Whilst I have a PhD in Theoretical Physics, I have not a single Biology* qualification (took Geology O'Level instead). The irony is not lost on my colleagues when I tell them, since I spend all day doing a mixture of Mathematics, Medicine and Biology! I'm also a Fellow of the British Pharmacology Society - but have no qualifications in errrr Pharmacology (but 25 years of experience doing it). Based on experience, I was considering becoming a Chartered Biologist, but that might upset Mrs TiRed (Plant Scientist by degree).

*I read a LOT of Biology papers though 😉 .

I have zero qualifications and only have a couple of bad A level results as evidence of anything.  So any of the roles I have had over the last 40 years have been without any qualifications by default.

I'm an insurance underwriter, basic qualifications required are some school but not sure how essential that is to be honest. You just need to have some common sense and be a bit pessimistic and able to see what could go wrong.

What is a weakness when it comes to mountain biking has made me a comfortable living in the end, which I seem to spend mostly on bikes.

I did a mechanical engineering degree but have worked in computers ever since - all sorts of roles from programmer to project manager to solutions architect. I still put "programmer" on forms that ask for job. No relevant qualificationa.

My father-in-law had a HND than a degree in aeronautical engineering via Hawker Siddeley at Filton. He then became a travelling salesman for Shell because they offered a company car which was a step up from the motorbike and sidecar that he brought his son back from hospital in. No relevant qualifications but he did have the gift of the gab.

He ended up in tribology and management at Shell - Shell did pay for him to do an MSc for the tribology and even sessions at Insead for management. Shell was a pretty good employer in the 70s and 80s.

One uncle, an Ofsted Inspector, even went as far as doing a mock interview with me as if I was a teacher to show how little I knew and how important the training and qualifications were. Even he admitted that my answers would have been good enough not to raise any red flags if it had been a real Ofsted interview.

So, is there any real use for qualifications other than being handy ‘notes of promise’ to show that someone has spent enough time to pass the exam, even if they have never done the job?

You may have been able to blag it, perhaps due to being intelligent enough or perhaps having grown up with lots of educators; but it would be foolish to rely on such people to staff schools or indeed any other profession.  Training can do a lot more than teach you how to do a job - if everyone does the same training then everyone can take the same approach which means that the industry is consistent.  I could probably wire a house based on my knowledge of physics, but can you imagine what would happen when the homeowner has to hire someone else to work on it when I'm not available?

I trained as a chemist (degree, then on the job in a detergent lab) before staying in chemical ingredient manufacturing - variety of roles with nothing but experience and the odd skills course - stuff like how to lead cross functional teams, etc., rather than understanding the chemistry better.

Then 5 years ago i switched - into scientific research, specifically metrology. I passed the interviews and assessment day and was then invited in to discuss (what i thought was) two possible roles - one leading a group on climate science and the other leading a group on..... well, turns out the CS role had been earmarked for another candidate and so when i got here they asked me if I'd be comfortable leading a group on quantum physics.

Schroedinger had been a mystery to me 30 years earlier when i was clever, and hadn't formed a large part of my ingredient manufacturing experience since  - I literally understood nothing.

Which turned out to be the right answer. It's literally so leading edge, what they're doing, that they don't even really understand each others areas - the quantum superconducting team can only just get their head around quantum optics and so on. So with a science lead equivalent i focused on what i can do which is organise and develop people and projects, and let them worry about the science. To know 'a bit' would be probably be far worse than knowing nothing and accepting it.

It's NOT common for Accountants to be 'qualified by experience' these days. Maybe accounts assistants etc, but not the Accountant - all our Accounting roles have Qualified staff. I passed my exams aged 23, and have another 31 years post qualification experience.

paper qualifications are useful for CV filtering purposes, once you;ve  decent amount of experience you wont really need the training.  The most useful bit ofs training (when I used to have that sort of thing) was talking to the other people on the courses and finding out that their companies have the same challenges and you aren't alone!

Btw your company doesn't sound all that bad - the alternative is a company that expressly doesn't move people around and whenever a vacancy arises, insists on hiring in 'senior' people from the outside the company who don't have a scooby after a couple of 1 hour interviews and seems to actively try to bore existing staff into leaving or accepting their fate of doing the same thing until they resign to progress

Friend of mine is a Director of Online IT Services at a major UK bank.

They have DPhil in Chemistry.

FWIW I need a minimum of a Masters in Computing Science or related subject to do my current job, or the last one for that matter. I'm an Engineering Designer by qualification. And only a lowly Bachelor (and a poor grade at that).

One internal job that i applied for (and turned down after being offered it) required a PhD. They were going to do a "work around" to make sure the PhD question didn't come up.

Most people in the history of the world have done jobs for which they had no qualifications beforehand. I don't know whether that tells us something good or bad. Myself, I run a bike company, with my ever-so-useful Geography Degree and little else qualifications wise.

Yes of course.  In IT, the industry doesn’t really require official qualifications

I think a lot of us "in the old days" drifted from other professions into IT without any qualifications other than knowing stuff from meddling with computery stuff. In my case I'm an ex-chartered civil engineer, drifted into IT via sewerage modelling and digital mapping.

my ever-so-useful Geography Degree

So when you colour in the designs for your new frames your three year degree means you don't go over the lines?

My entire career in IT comes from a place of zero qualifications. To the extent I dropped out of my university degree which would have been an appropriate qualification for what I do!

Currently senior member of a small team who operate the cloud infrastructure for the largest company in the sector we operate in. A team who while small are a) very capable and b) equally without qualifications.

Even many of the software engineers in the company are without a degree, but are truly excellent at what they do.

I have a 2:2 in BSc Music, Acoustics and Recording.

I currently work as an Email Marketing Manager, writing HTML, tinkering with automation, subediting people's copywriting, and managing a team of 2 people.

I got a degree in computing at uni and was thoroughly fed up of it at the end.

For the past 12 years I have been designing gas connections for a big gas transporter, and have zero qualifications as the company didn’t want to spend the money training people. I think one of us in the office has the official qualification from years ago before she joined our company. I just feel trapped here as would be really difficult to move anywhere else. The annoying thing is that any external people wanting to do work on our network we insist on them being qualified…. doh.

I started temping answering the phones and worked up and took advantage of the office relocating a couple of times and 99% of staff not wanting to relocate.

My first career was in insurance, and I got my qualifications through the CII.

Everything for the last 25 years I've not had any "formal" qualifications for. Currently a (very) under-qualified civil servant.

Which kind of proves experience and on the job training may be a better route for many.

sewerage modelling

I get visions of some grubby urchin sitting inside a giant pipe, moulding shapes out of... something 😂

As said I think it's pretty common in IT. I'm a programmer and have nothing beyond a basic introductory course with a City & Guilds certificate. Mostly learnt privately out of interest or on the job.

Years ago I had an optician who took up programming as a hobby, wrote a program to help run his practice. He then went on to sell it to others, realised programming was better and left to do that instead!

I can of drifted into IT, I knew it was the direction I wanted to go, just wasn’t sure how.

I work as a Technology Director for a large Investment Bank. I don’t think actual qualifications would be of any use to my role, I work on a diverse cross section of business areas, my general focus is on Operation Efficiency (budget management) and with a secondary task of being in charge of the technical aspect of. Mergers & Acquisitions for my business unit.  Maybe a business management qualification of some sort, but I’m too old and tired to even look into it. I’m 50 but my role is very time consuming, I don’t think I would have the energy to go back to studying.

Back in the early years (1990’s), working in an IT support role I did my MCSE and over time then moved into Project Management and ultimately Product Management. I have completed my Prince 2 Practitioner but it’s out of date. I do have to go on an Agile Course but it’s an internal course with no formal quals.

Technically for me to get promoted I need a Masters. That’s not going to happen. Was quite strange as I had a 1-2-1 with the CIO last year and he asked me what my Masters was in…..he was pretty surprised when I explained I don’t have one, just a GCSE in PE….