Did this happen to you in your career????

Society Business and Career
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Sup folks!..

As ya know i don’t have formal degree from university (as i am working toward it) but recently been offered senior management position for very good company. And i guess
i’ve wrapped up pretty good experience on my resume. So while interview with the associate vp of the company. He told me that they are looking for someone with
not necessarily with degree but right personality and experience. Which Allah ka shukr hai..i seem to be fit for the position as i have been advised.

So question to ya would be.

  1. So gone are the days where education seemed to matter alot for high positions?

  2. Has anyone gone through same experience as me?. How did you do?

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

me has no degree but I am chief naanbie at a very big hotel.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

This is only possible I guess in the 'west', if you don't have a degree here, you won't get a secretary position, let alone a senior level management position. I am sure there are exceptions here, I guess it depends on the organisation; but working with HR for 4 months I have learnt a thing or two and that basically tells me no degree is an automatic disqualifier. I think Education will always be important.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

This is very common nowadays specially in IT related jobs. Smaller companies just look for needed skills in the person and ask for degree only as a formality.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

I don't know - but I have reached to a point in my career , when I must go and do my PHD ! so some how you can't neglect the importance of a degree , even in core tech jobs !

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

Ya eh!. In UAE or middle eastern country ya require a degree to get any job. But in west i guess things are different. And because workplaces aren't only looking for what degree ya completed..but also your personality and skills you have to execute your job. But very interesting indeed.

No dude..the company which i am talking about has been around for more 100 years. They have branches in middle east, africa, europe and as well as North America wide. And yo..i am not really into IT field.

I haven't negleted my friend..my cirumstances didn't allow me continue my degree in my early 20s. Had to support my parents and sisters. Coz..my dad was very ill. So now it has been a while since i have started my degree program Allah ka shukr hai. Along with other certification i am doing at the moment..

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

^ u dont need to give any explanation to anybody as to why u didnt complete ur degree.. not all of us were born with a silver spoon .. i myself is working towards finishing my degree InshAllah next semester.. all by myself no parents support whatsoever.. so good luck to u tooo..!!

@ the topic I knoww my district manager has no college degree but hes managing well ofcourse the whole district and making good dineroo. .so ya

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

Thanks for smooth words yo!..Ya everyone's situation is different..but i guess as long as we are working toward it..thats what matters!..cheers to ya!

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

@Xtron i know many organization offer jobs on the basis of experience but not on degree.

Your degree will help you in your promotion and allow you to grow and get good position.

my two cents: you should complete your degree.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career???

This is not unheard of – all the power to you to be in a position where you’re having second thoughts about your degree :k: :smiley:

I’m going to answer your question based on personal experience since I can relate somewhat. I completed my undergrad degree while working full-time since I was also able to avail reasonably good work opportunities along the way. I had some certifications and work experience which made it quite lucrative to pursue consulting gigs along the way also, and there were multiple occasions where I had to rethink about my degree completion. I had seen many other around me get good jobs with the qualifications that I already possessed. That being said, I’m glad I stuck by it and even though I spent a little longer in completing my degree, in the end it did pay off. Some of those colleagues had to come back to school later in times of economic downturn when consulting gigs were hard to come by and most jobs asked for a formal education.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s nothing wrong in availing these opportunities, but don’t forego your formal education – continue on a part-time basis if you have to… take longer if you need to… nothing wrong with this. In the end, a degree doesn’t just show qualifications, it also shows perseverance and commitment… these are intrinsic attributes that are valued by many organizations even if they don’t value the extrinsic credential itself.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

technology, project/program mgmt and often sales/biz dev roles offer the opportunity to people to move forward without a college degree.

Where this becomes an issue is when competing with similarly skilled people in the same company who have the degree, but most importantly when looking elsewhere, where one may not have the same sort of interpersonal relationships and history as the current company.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

Perhaps not often given much thought ... But my personal opinion is that getting a good degree measures how:

A) indoctrinated you are
B) predictable

Such people do not challenge authority as much and put more hours in to produce the work. They follow and are more organised ..

However, they are less likely to think out of the box ...

Richard Branson quit his degree when he saw something better ...

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

No i agree with having a degree for sure folks. But i was trying to understand whether this has become a career trend where if you don't have a degree then based on your solid experience you can be interviewed for high position. Having said that..i gota call from them seeking my references. :D..sweeet..Alhamdulli'lah!

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

While there are some examples of people who did not finish formal education to go and kick butt,
the vast majority of people who are successful have completed formal training/education in their field, and the better the institution, the better their prospects.

Not everyone without a degree is a richard branson, and everyone with a degree some automaton paper pusher.
if broader trends are observed, people with formal education credentials do better as a whole than those without.

if we look at US unemployment right now, the difference between ppl with just high school diplomas, vs those with college degrees vs those with advanced degrees is very telling.

furthermore, even these very unique people surround themselves with people who supplement their own gaps in knowledge. hiring the best accountants, finance, marketing and operations people. Feel free to look up Virgin leadership teams for the last two decades, count the degrees and the credentials, and from which institutions.

Point being, unless you are a richard branson...its better to be equipped properly to be on his A-team.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

In general the more experience you have, the degree..and where you got it from, or whether you have it becomes less important, and what you can deliver starts getting increasing importance.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

Peace X2

Yes ... If the measure of doing well is actually having a job then yes ... Formally educated people are doing better, but me being as strange as you ... I see their formal education being a measure of how subservient they are rather than how truly successful they are ... Free thinkers for me are the truly successful.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

The jobs was just an example. The vast majority of innovation comes from people with formal education and training in their fields, so there is plenty of out of the box thinking going on there. You are free to equate formal education as subservience. I would however advise anyone asking here to the contrary. Especially those asking about career/employment. If someone shows up saying they have the next Facebook, or apple, or virgin in the works and whether to complete their degree or go launch the company, I would say go for latter..thats rare though.

Even when you look at successful entrepreneurs, or thinkers, or scholars vast majority has some measure of formal education in their field. otherwise why stop at university? why even send the kids to any highschool, or primary school or teach them how to read and write? why give them books? let them figure stuff out on their own.

I dont know of too many people going to a surgeon who has not been formally trained and who has passed the certifications needed. Not sure many sane people want to go to any free thinking "truly successful" surgeon who is lacking in formal training, credentials and certifications.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

I have a degree but my experience wasn't all that great (coz I was a small fish in a very small pond) and then I switched to teaching which was great but here in the West the kind of teaching I used do requires a Phd in my field.

In my opinion degree gets you in but you need relevant experience to climb the ladder and certifications in your field help a lot too.

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

Indeed you are correct, in my discussion I failed to draw the distinction between formal mass education which some believe is actually disinformation ... Whereas it is true that those who excel in any given field are encouraged to continue excelling but on the whole these tend to be people from elite educational backgrounds.

My point in all this is that much of formal education is designed to restrict growth by curbing the mind away from leadership and strategic thinking. But yes ... Given the consideration of the best minds they have been formally educated in their own fields ... with a few exceptions ... The irony is those few exceptions are quite famous ...

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Re: Did this happen to you in your career????

Depends on the area. Some functions require specialized knowledge and corporations need to be comfortable that the person is bringing that knowledge in demonstrated by a degree or certification.

A lot of times, moving in a career (like teaching, or medicine) is almost impossible without a diploma. Some functions like Sales and Marketing require personal qualities and not a degree where you see a lot of non-graduates doing great in their career.