Will Degree Help Consultant Career

JJ, I think a degree is a plus regardless of your age. It will obviously mean more if the degree covers areas where you are looking for work.

In your particular case though, it probably has an added advantage.

You mention that your experienceis with mainframe software development which in many peoples minds will mean dated hardware technology and old software development platforms. The fact that you have a recent degree will telegraph the fact that you have attempted to bring your skills up to date.

Obviously your experience will mean much more to companies that still maintain the hardware and software environments you have experience with.

I won't pretend that it isn't harder for "older" people to get a job in today's IT environment. Much of your ability (or inability) to find work will depend on how relevent your skills are to a companies current IT infrastructure. Your mainframe experience probably won't mean much to a company which uses solely new cutting edge PCsand whose sole development environment is C##.

I do wish you good luck, and don't give up.

Tim pretty much covered it. I have a couple of points to add.

Getting a current degree shows that you are actively maintaining your skills. This is always a plus.

If you review the forms that many firms use when evaluating vendors, the ratioof degreed to non-degreed employees can weigh heavily.
Further, advanced degrees count even more.
While I'm loath to promote them, (bad experiances with MBA's with common sense lobotamys) a MBA degree can add significantly to your employability.
Chas

With recent degree, shows you are trying to keep up with the times, over 10 years on mainfame, helps a great deal, most companies can not afford to replace the 3 to 10 bays of equipment they currently own with an under desk model (that does 10 timesas much).

Good luck on your search, a forward looking person is 5 times as employable as a stuck in the rut (this is all I can be) type of person.

BTW - What I look for in an employee.

Been there, done that. Forget the degree. Go back to school (live walk-in type) for technical courses. Train in c # or SQL server and get certified, or go for computer security (SANS training) Its what you can do, not a degree that gets you in the door. A degree teaches you how to think and be smart, not how to program. For a manager, yes its a biggy. For a programmer, no.

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