How to Sell Your Online Degree as an Asset During Job Interviews

How to Sell Your Online Degree as an Asset During Job Interviews

While online education is becoming both increasingly popular and increasingly accepted as an educational norm, there is still some stigma out there regarding its legitimacy.

If you have an online degree, you may be worried what recruiters and potential employers will think about your credential, but don’t worry!

There are many ways to turn these negative beliefs around and convince hiring managers that your degree is valid, marketable and actually desirable. Follow the following tips to ace your job interviews and get that desirable position:

1. Speak of Your Online Education with Confidence

If you squirm or look at all uncomfortable when an interviewer makes a point of addressing the fact that your degree was completed online, it will seem as if you’re embarrassed by your education. Don’t allow that to happen, since it will only further reinforce the interviewer’s potential negative assumptions about the validity of online degrees. When you speak of your education, be sure to speak with confidence and assertion, showing that you’re both proud and confident with how and where you got your degree.

2. Emphasis That Your Online Degree is Fully Accredited

Many people write online education off as an invalid form of education because they assume that all online degrees come from “diploma mills” where students simply pay for a degree without having to do any work at all. Prove these naysayers wrong by strongly emphasizing during the interview that your degree is from a university or college that is fully accredited by widely recognized academic bodies, making it just as a valid degree as from anywhere else.

3. Explain How You’ve Become an Advanced Independent Worker

Of course employers love to hear about how you’re a “team player” but they also want to know that they can trust you with individual assignments where you’ll be left very much to your own devices. Emphasis how you’ve become an advanced independent worker as an online student, as there was no one in person to constantly remind you of assignments due and upcoming exams. Argue how your online education has allowed you to develop immense self discipline and the ability to learn extremely well independently. These are both hot in demand skills that just about any employer will greatly value.

4. List What You Actually Learned with Your Degree

Some employers may not be able to get past the fact that you got your degree online, and won’t even consider the skills you may have gained from the subject you studied. Break this thinking pattern by clearly emphasizing during your interview the marketable skills you gained from the subject you studied and how these skills will add value to both the position and the company you’re applying for. The chances are you gained some great skills during your degree program, whether it’s how to write clearly or concisely or how to put a marketing strategy document together, so don’t let these skills go unnoticed!

5. Mention The Advanced Computer & Online Research Skills You’ve Gained

In this day and age, the last thing an employer wants to do is have to train an employee basic computer based administrative and online research skills. Make it clearly known within the interview that your online degree allowed to expand and advance your computer skills, and that you’re completely comfortable with a multitude of computer software, tools and programs.

There’s no shame in getting your degree online, be proud of it! Use our tips to help you turn your online education into an asset and land the job of your dreams. Good luck!