It’s amazing how much weight a college degree holds in the job market considering that most employers have no idea what classes you took, what you learned, or how you did (unless you include your GPA). With that said, we all know that a college degree isn’t enough to land a job these days–employers want education and experience that is directly applicable to their jobs. College is only a small slice of the education that you’ll need to succeed, but it’s so nicely packaged. As we start to see education as more of a lifelong experience, we’re going to need better credentials. That’s what Degreed offers. They’re a San Francisco, CA and Salt Lake City, UT based startup that “jailbreaks degrees” by offering “a free service that scores and validates your lifelong education from both accredited (i.e. Harvard) and non-accredited (i.e. iTunesU, Lynda.com, Khan Academy, etc.) sources.”

Get Degreed

Over the years I’ve had a number of people pitch me on ideas for ways to credential entry level talent. Usually it’s attached to some training course or series of tests, so it should be no surprise that I’ve never been impressed. Degreed is different. They are categorizing, quantifying, and displaying your educational history in a way that is useful. Just how LinkedIn is replacing the Work History part of your résumé, I think Degreed can replace the Education part. But they’re a long way from that right now. I signed up and couldn’t even find my Major. I’m not going to invest in filling out a profile unless it’s easy and valuable. Degreed’s business model is predicated on having employers recruit from the database, so there could be some serious value down the road. If you want to be part of Degreed’s future, take a look at their Jobs page. Right now they’re looking for “developers, designers and deviants.” They don’t get any more specific than that, but a reader e-mailed me to tell me that he saw a posting from Degreed on his school’s Careers site. If you’re going to apply for a position, be sure to use your Degreed profile.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• Degreed.com
• Jobs at Degreed
• About Degreed
• Degreed’s Team
• Degreed in the News

Will you try Degreed?

We've identified Degreed as having career opportunities in the following categories:

• all employers
• California
• design
• education
• social media
• software development
• user experience
• Utah
• web development

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