| There's probably a general cultural or sociological alignment to such openness you could identify in an area but the best chances are likely where the demand simply outstrips the supply enough that companies will be more flexible in their hiring. Personally, I have zero degrees and no formal education in ANYTHING, not to mention a general distaste for traditional classroom training in general, yet starting with a graphic design job that fell in my lap in 1998 (it's who you know...), I've simply developed my skills "organically" (?) and parlayed each position into the next, having worked as a web developer (at loosely-run non-profits and for very traditionally-structured government contractors), UX architect (at a very well-known company/domain name provider), UI developer (financial institution), and now as software engineer building web apps for a very narrow vertical market. While my first "real" office job was Southern California (in an inland bedroom community 1 hour north of San Diego), the bulk of my career has spanned 2 geographic areas: Phoenix and Denver (mostly the suburbs, at that.) Relocating to both did entail factoring in the availability of relevant jobs but was more about what I wanted for my life at the time the decision was made. It's highly unlikely I'd ever be a strong candidate for a Silicon Valley-type company or a startup, which is fine wth me since I'm a work-to-live type temperament and have never been the "work hard, play hard" type. But I also have a seemingly natural desire to be a good employee & coworker and like to be proud of the quality of work I do. Some of that might be a result of the "leadership development" that was unofficially required in my first job. The foundations for my career are only based in teenage dabbling in software (coding BASIC on a TRS-80 in the early 90s, reverse engineering the HTML in webpages to build my own in the mid-90s) and a general technical bent overlaid with creative tendencies. Having a nearly insatiable thirst for knowledge probably helps too... |