Jill was six months into the job search and getting discouraged. Being a job seeker was beginning to feel like a full-time job.  

She really wanted to land a position as an Executive Assistant with a top corporation in Chicago. She had been working as an Administrative Assistant at a non-profit organization for three years and was hoping to make the leap into a more advanced role. Every position she applied to required a minimum of two years of college education, however.

Jill had drafted a resume using the templates on Microsoft Word. She was sure she did well by including skills like hard-working and deadline-oriented. Jill wasn’t getting called for interviews even though she had the minimum experience in lieu of education.

Then, Jill’s friend Sandra suggested she revamp her resume. Sandra encouraged Jill to condense her text, include interesting verbs, and use a trendy layout. Jill cautiously obliged but was finally getting calls about her resume within a few weeks.

Employers were excited to talk with Jill because she was able to show her exceptional experience assisting top management of a non-profit. In spite of the fact that she lacked a degree, some employers even talked to Jill about other positions in their companies because she had so much relevant transferable experience. Jill didn’t realize her qualifications until she started to unveil her talents from the lackluster verbiage of her standard resume.

Don’t miss great opportunities because you don’t meet all of the qualifications. Instead, use these tips to shine as a job seeker without a college degree:

Christa was one of the lucky few students who had a job lined up for after graduation. But when that workplace didn’t pan out a few years later, she quickly learned how rough the job market could be. After a month of her search going nowhere, Christa decided to turn to the place that helped her get her first job: her alma mater.

A graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder, she went back to their career services site and began to look at the resources they had to offer her. She found open positions that interested her and, to her surprise, every application she sent out received a response. After four job offers in nine weeks, she started a job she loved — all because of her alma mater.

Before you t

hink, “Good for Christa, but what good does that do me?” know that your university probably has support for you, too. Gallup and Inside Higher Ed’s 2016 survey, Inside Higher Ed Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers, found 83 percent of colleges are creating programs to help students get “good” jobs.

If you think your university career services department or alumni center have nothing of value to offer, here are four reasons to reconsider:

Jennifer Faulkner, a marketing manager at Proposify, is the perfect example of why a freelance creative might want to make the jump to “nine-to-five” employment. Jennifer was a six-year freelance veteran who’d been working at Proposify for almost two years before she detailed her transition on the company’s blog.

When Jennifer was a freelancer, she was convinced she’d never go back to a regular job. She loved the freedom to choose her projects, relished the choice to pick her co-workers, and appreciated her options to work whenever she wanted.

Jennifer’s story is not unlike many freelancers currently in the industry. Working a “regular” job comes with benefits like steady pay, vacation hours, and a feeling of stability. Still, it can be difficult making the transition from full-time freelancing to the new office desk jockey.

So, how can freelancers make the jump? Here’s a roadmap to guide you seamlessly into steady employment:

Walt Disney wasn’t born into excellence. In fact, it was after he failed to sneak into the armed forces at age 16, and then drove ambulance in France for the Red Cross that he switched to pursuing a career as an artist.

Like so many others, Disney didn’t immediately dive into a successful entrepreneurial career. In 1919 he started out as a newspaper artist. It wasn’t until December 21, 1937 that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated film, was released in Los Angeles. After it produced an unimaginable $1.5 million, in spite of the Depression, Disney’s career finally took off into a world where dreams really do come true.

Let’s take a look at what Disney has taught us about challenging job searches: