How CourseCareers Can Get You a High-Paying Job Without a College Degree

Throughout the years, college has been viewed as a necessity for people looking for jobs in the tech industry. Today, many people still consider going to college a foregone conclusion, despite the growing student loan crisis and the fact that tech giants such as Google, Apple, and IBM are no longer requiring potential employees to have college degrees. Times are changing, and the skills-first job market is becoming the future of work in this digital age.

Although skills-first hiring has leveled the playing field for talented tech industry hopefuls without a college degree, skills are still necessary to win coveted positions at tech companies in such a competitive market. And without college, where can these aspiring analysts, IT technicians, managers, and salespeople go to learn the necessary skills to thrive in the tech industry?

Enter CourseCareers, a skills-based education platform that combines the convenience of learning from home with the enlightening experience of learning practical skills from experts in their chosen field. Furthermore, CourseCareers doesn’t just teach users technical skills, but also guides them through the entire job search process, including building a standout résumé, giving confident and impressive answers during interviews, and finding the right workplaces to apply for to increase chances of landing a satisfying, well-paying job.

These lessons are available through the platform’s Career Launchpad, which helps users stand out in a competitive job market by providing comprehensive job search guidance and proven outreach strategies that ensure users can go from submitting résumés to getting directly in front of hiring managers. The CourseCareers Career Launchpad includes unlimited AI interview practice, plus the option to work directly with professional coaches working in the industry for individualized feedback and interview prep support (available for an additional fee). All of these resources are available to users after they finish the final exams for their CourseCareers courses.

“By the time students finish a CourseCareers course, they understand how to turn what they’ve learned into a real job,” CourseCareers Founder and CEO Troy Buckholdt commented. “The goal is to make education simple, affordable, and effective again: to give people the tools, community, and confidence to change their lives on their own terms.”

Buckholdt’s vision for CourseCareers is driven by his personal experiences after leaving school at 16 years old. He spent a year hitchhiking from Atlanta to San Francisco without any money in his pocket as a personal challenge. The trip strengthened his belief in the importance of effort and action. Without any time to overthink or worry about his next meal, he was forced to solve problems through his own efforts.

This mindset proved helpful when he decided to pursue a career in B2B sales two years later, using self-taught skills to land a full-time job. Because of his path through the industry, Buckholdt began to realize the shortcomings of the traditional college system and the potential benefits of focusing on skills over earning a degree. In 2019, he published the book The Lean Career, which argued that the college system was in a financial bubble and the student debt crisis would eventually cause the higher education industry to become unsustainable. In the same year, he also founded CourseCareers to provide the type of education he wished he had when he was watching YouTube videos and reading free resources to earn a place in the tech field.

Since its founding, CourseCareer has helped countless students start or switch careers without having to earn a degree in their new field. Success stories include 18-year-old Sebastien Solomon, who skipped college but beat out college graduates to land a $70K/year tech job after learning the requisite skills through CourseCareer. Other testimonials include the story of Andre Roberson, who was working three jobs before transitioning to an $80K/year position in tech, or Lillian Chukwueze, who struggled as a real-estate agent before landing a $75K/year job in tech sales. The emergence of CourseCareers reflects a larger trend in both education and the job market. Skills-based learning platforms are becoming a legitimate college alternative for people in fields such as tech. If this trend continues, people can expect to see a shift from expensive and irrelevant college courses to more specialized education aimed at helping students do what they came to college for in the first place: finding the right career.