Wait I'm a What!?!?!

[jackfaire]

For the last ten years a friend of mine has been along with going to school been running a small family business. It's not large but they have regular clients and even used some of the profits to open a second business.

I am a college dropout. I was a business major and my friend ten years ago asked me to start consulting on her business. I do research, write reports and help her figure out what things are a good idea or bad idea for the company to do.

I have consulted on the Marketing, Shipping, client interaction etc. Pretty much if it's part of the business my opinion has been asked. Since it's a small family business most of the money for it gets pushed back into the company and no one in the family has had the ability to dedicate enough time to it in order to grow it into a larger company. As such I work mostly pro-bono with the understanding that my friend hires me on officially if the company makes enough of a profit that everyone can start drawing a salary.

Or if she gets a job at a company and is in a position to hire me as I have been unable to go back to finish my formal degree even though I continued my business education.

Now here's where the title comes into effect. It had never really occurred to me to add the job to my resume. I had previously listed a company I ran for 2 years but was told by many HR reps that without a Bachelor's to back it up they just dont' care.

So I am job hunting and decided to completely revamp my resume. I decided to add Business Consultant to my resume as I have been doing the job for a long time.

What I expected was that it would give me a leg up in the entry level office positions I tend to get. What I didn't expect when I went looking for Business Consultant job listings to get an idea how to properly word my responsibilities was to see this on a lot of them "Must have Bachelor's Degree in (Field that consulting firm specializes in) OR More than 3 years experience in said field"

Some companies specialize in securities for example something that I haven't done for example but companies looking for general business consulting yeah I can do that.

The odd thing is now I am kind of freaking out. What this is telling me is that it's a very real possibility that I could bypass the college requirement and get paid for my knowledge and experience launching me for the first time since I was 22 into a good solid office job that isn't at the level of getting someone a cup of coffee or telling a customer why we aren't really screwing them over even if it feels that way.

So I guess I have a question? Even with my experience is my degree or rather lack there of going to be a factor for HR reps or will they care more about the fact they get someone who knows their job and doesn't have to be handheld?

[s_stabeler]

it varies- and it isn't always HR that do hiring except processing the paperwork- since some hiring managers will toss a resume that doesn't have a bachelor's degree without looking at it, while others will at least look.

But yes, it IS possible.

[Canarr]

What s_stabeler said.

Make sure that your friend writes you a nice, glowing letter of recommendation; those don't cost anything.

[TheHuckster]

Word of advice: Smaller companies tend to be more open to this kind of stuff. Larger conglomerates tend to have more red-tape in their hiring practices.