Are you interested in landing a job that deals with crypto but concerned that it is out of reach because you don’t have a degree that demonstrates your proficiency in blockchain technology? Omid Malekan, a Columbia University adjunct professor, refuses this notion and explains how you can make your dream a reality — even without a degree.
As we can see from the most recent LinkedIn annual report, Blockchain was considered to be the most in-demand “hard skills” job on the market. Malekan, a blockchain consultant who teaches an MBA course focused on cryptocurrencies and blockchain, believes that the demand for blockchain specialists far outweighs the number of job postings found at crypto and non-crypto-native enterprises.
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Philipe Forte, a partner at The BlockVenture Coalition, which includes forty-four funds and forty-one university blockchain groups, says that despite the fact that the job market faced a huge fall due to COVID-19, startups began intensively seeking to hire employees for engineering support. According to Philipe, today, many companies such as JPMorgan and Walmart are trying to test new blockchain initiatives based on the philosophy that non-technical folks can be trained.
Students, professors, HR departments, and startup founders all agree that formal education is not the deciding factor when they are looking to hire. When hit by COVID-19, the university business model was no longer reliable, leading to many students and employers doubting the payoff of a blockchain-related education.
On the other hand, what exactly are these enterprises expecting from new employees? According to Malekan, employers are interested in applicants who have hands-on experience, investing in cryptocurrencies, blockchain, PromptPay, etc.
So, just what skills do you need to have in order to land a job?
Nir Kabessa, the founder of Yup and ex-president of the Columbia Blockchain Club (where people receive tokens for their social media activity), says the first question you will be asked during an interview for a company that deals with cryptocurrencies is “How does Bitcoin work?”. Although Kabessa participated in expanding the blockchain curriculum at Columbia University, when asked about his initial training and education, Kabessa told us that he learned a lot from listening to guest speakers and, of course, from teaching himself.
Janice Ng, chief of education of Blockchain at Berkeley (a top university club), recently developed and opened a free, online course to expand her teachings beyond the students of Berkeley. This is just one example from thousands of free programs that we can point to today, dedicated to breaking down barriers, making blockchain more accessible to anyone with drive and passion.
Today, although virtually everyone has heard about blockchain, in most cases, very few of us truly understand what it is and how it works. That’s why teaching the basics is our aim — to make blockchain more accessible.
Projects and portfolios are a great way to prove your worth in the business world, so be sure to have some samples of your best work, at the ready, to show off when the time comes. Scott Olson, head of blockchain integrations at Truffle Suite, says that if you are looking for a job as a developer, consider contributing to open-source projects and let your code speak for itself. Olson further explains that his company faced so many situations where potential employees said they knew Solidity, Javascript, or Typescript, but got “caught” in the coding-test round. Olson addressed all the candidates and assured them that if they make a claim regarding anything technical, then they had better be able to back it up.
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