Ask HN: I have a 6th-grade education. Should I hide this in interviews?

Let me correct one thing - it is not that you have a 6th grade education, it is that you stopped formal schooling at the 6th grade and completed your education on your own. If you truly had stopped learning, you would not have accomplished what you described.

So rather than fret over when the last time you sat in a classroom was... Be proud and confident of who you are, what you have accomplished, and what you will accomplish in the future.

At some point that goes away. Your future educational history eclipses and sort of "hides" all that.

I got a GED in 1991, in lieu of traditional high school graduation. I'd been in foster care. Once I'd been in college, the pre-college educational history no longer matters.

Since I finished my degree in 2013 (finally!) that I'd started in 1991… anything before it is irrelevant. There may be an outlier company where this doesn't apply, but I feel like that's the exception and not the rule.

When education is used as a hiring filter, it’s usually at the resume stage, where other signals are week. Once you’ve reached on-site it’s about what you know and can do, not what pieces of paper you possess.

Being self-taught as a programmer myself, and knowing what’s involved in that, I’m a little bit in awe of anyone who managed to learn programming with no more than an elementary school formal education. I can’t speak for random FAANG interviewers, but hopefully they’ll also be suitably impressed.

Maybe save it to share until you’ve already wowed them with your skills, rather than sharing up front, which might cause them to evaluate you based on biases or stereotypes?

If you made to on-site interviews at FAANG companies, do not worry about anything. These guys are intelligent enough to evaluate your actual software and soft skills necessary to be successful at their respective companies.

What he/she said ^

It seems like they give everyone a interview now days. Man I don't think its worth the time. I have just ignored all recruiters from google. Those guys are pretty unprofessional. I prefer the Facebook recruiters.

I suggest you do an experiment, and try it on some companies you don't care if you get an offer or not.

Do 10 interviews. 5 of which you hide this fact to the best of your ability, and the other 5 embrace it as a positive part of your history.

You don't have to wait for a call back, you should just be able to read the interviewer's expression as you tell him this.

And again, it depends upon how you sell it. If you sell yourself as "damaged goods", you probably won't get an offer. If on the other hand you sell yourself as someone who has "overcome" a terrible life story, it might work in your favor, and you never know, it might open doors you wouldn't expect to open.

Unless they ask you to, you tell them. And I think that by doing that and telling that you come from that background and maybe give them a bit of display how you have learned everything by yourself(Great quality!!!), you mind end up even with more respect.

But I would only talk about it if I had to. When I go to interviews, even though that I have a BS in CS, I don't talk about it, it's already on my CV and people should know it. As I'm a Senior/Lead whatever developer with many years of experience, that makes no difference whatsoever. Because even my deep knowledge I've learned in CS about B-tree algorithms already has been mostly forgotten and can be revived only by Googling it a few minutes, and if I'm preparing for a interview, I'll review it... and those things are better proven live(in a whiteboard or in a coding challenge) than with a Diploma(which very rarely they will ask).

As someone who has hired masters degree comp sci grads and self taught programmers, I can tell you personally I would find your story impressive and attribute to you both grit and self sufficiency.

But it depends on who you're talking to I guess. You'll have to gauge their openmindedness for yourself.

> I got a formal software job years ago, and have since held a few positions, including senior engineering positions, at some small- and mid-size Bay Area tech companies.

You're golden. If you've done it on the job, most people don't care what your formal education is. (Some do care. Ignore them.)

I know a CTO at a well known, but small, quant hedge fund who only graduated from high school. He works along side multiple Math PHDs from MIT. Anything is possible when your skills (programming and math) can be verified easily. Good luck on your career and congrats!

Explicitly advertising your past might not help you to progress over your "typical" engineering career.

That said if you want to become a vigilante for "how to be successful with bad childhood and no education" - that might work really well.

Congratulations.

At the interview stage I expect it would not even come up.

I wouldn't boast about it either though.

Nice work, good luck at the interviews.

Embrace it. Personally, I’d interpret that as an asset in your favor.

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