For the past year I have been looking at job requirements and almost all of the jobs I see posted (big companies and small companies alike) have college education requirements. But I dont have any of that and can't afford it.

I'm taking up the Unity certification courses and looking to try my hand at a number of disciplines to see what I enjoy most and delve further in to, but there is something nagging at me. I don't know if these will be enough even with a fleshed out portfolio at the end of it. With the growing popularity of MOOCs and secondary education resources, it leads me to think that there is hope.

My main concern is what my career coach talks about and that is, while they are growing more popular compared to traditional education choices, MOOCs and cert programs just dont carry the same weight behind them, even if they are the same courses presented with a different name.

Is there any way to make myself look more appealing as a candidate for a Junior position? Any particular types of projects on my portfolio or any other piece of advice? Any professional advice is appreciated.

Excalibur0047 said:
Is there any way to make myself look more appealing as a candidate for a Junior position? Any particular types of projects on my portfolio or any other piece of advice? Any professional advice is appreciated.

You need a really spectacular portfolio, and your name in a bunch of games that have attracted good reviews and rankings. That's the only way to fix not having a degree. When you say the name of a game you worked on, you want their eyes to light up: “Oh yeah, I was impressed with that one.”

And no, certifications are not enough. Nothing by itself is enough.

I can't really speak for the industry at large, but I've never heard of anyone in games taking any certification programs seriously. On the other hand I know lots of places that are happy to hire candidates without degrees who have interesting personal projects (typically published on GitHub these days).