now YOU are the one speaking in generalities. 
i don’t feel like getting into it anymore, but everything depends on your experience at your first real career based job.
there are entry level positions ( i.e the lowest rung ) at every company, and these are reserved for new graduates with no experience other than internships. in a large majority of professions you learn everything you need to know on the job.
what this means is that in most professions, if all you have is experience and no degree, you won’t be applying for the lowest rung, you should be applying for something a level higher. at this point your employer is hoping you have SOMETHING beneficial in your history that can assist or complement everything they are going to teach you.
fadskfdhsak im tired of typing about this shit
whats worse is that this is hardly relevant as gfx design and all that other shit is TOTALLY experience based. if you can show you are a hardass you’ll be fine. Spelling mistakes won’t help, but showing competency in a range of styles ( within one subset ) will