Will the Lack of a Degree Stop Your Ascent up the Executive Career Ladder?

Do you have nightmares about being eliminated from consideration for your dream executive job because you do not have a college degree?

While it is a fact that some employers will reject a candidate who lacks the stated educational requirements for a position, there are plenty of employers who will welcome your extensive experience and proven ability to deliver business results.

The key to succeeding in the executive marketplace without a degree is to demonstrate to the potential employer that you are an outstanding performer who can be counted upon to deliver exceptional business results. If your resume has been crafted powerfully and you present yourself compellingly in interviews, employers will be so impressed by the value you bring to the table that “shortcomings” in your education will likely be overlooked or offset.

If you have no college at all, a two-year degree, or an incomplete Bachelors or Masters degree, you can “beef up” the education section in your resume with professional development coursework and certifications you do have. If you have limited or no college, AND no professional development to highlight, you may wish to consider omitting the Education section entirely.

You may also list partial undergraduate or postgraduate education without dates, leaving further details for the interview (at which point you have already gotten your foot in the door). Simply indicate your major course of study, the institution, and its location. If you are then asked in an interview if you have a degree or, if not, why you did not obtain one, you could say something like: ''I found challenging work in the field and my career took off. However, I have actively pursued continuing education through professional and executive leadership seminars such as…"

Given a wealth of career experience, I see no need to devote much space on your resume to education, and would not recommend apologizing for the lack of the desired degree in your cover letter, either. Let the resume and your impressive abilities and accomplishments speak for themselves.

Even with the most masterfully crafted resume, there are companies who arbitrarily will not budge on an educational requirement. A company with a small-minded, no exceptions policy that all employees except for mailroom clerks and delivery drivers need a degree may not be your best bet, but there are plenty of companies that are smart enough to realize that it is what you can prove you can do that is important, not what a piece of paper says that you may know.

It is important to take care not to let the lack of an undergraduate or advanced degree affect your confidence, and to avoid defensiveness about it. Many, many of my very successful executive clients do not have college degrees. And the world is full of well-known and extremely successful professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs who likewise do not have degrees. Some of them never graduated high school either—for example, famed journalist and news anchor Peter Jennings. Other notables with partial or no college educations are:

• Michael Dell, billionaire founder and CEO of Dell, Inc.—dropped out of college at age 19



• Bill Gates (who was just 10 points shy of a perfect score on his SATs), completed only two years at Harvard before he dropped out to form Microsoft.



• Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook (now in its IPO), dropped out of college.



• Larry Ellison of Oracle was a University of Illinois dropout (due to his adoptive mother’s passing).



• Steve Jobs of Apple was a first-year college dropout.



• Andrew Carnegie, industrialist and philanthropist, was an elementary school dropout.



• David Ogilvy, advertising executive, was actually expelled from Oxford University.



• David H. Komansky, retired chairman of Merrill Lynch, and Richard A. Grasso, who headed the New York Stock Exchange, also did not have college degrees.

Going way back, Benjamin Franklin, inventor, scientist, author, and entrepreneur, was primarily home-schooled. Ten of our U.S. Presidents never attended or completed college, including Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, and Truman.

So, if you are “sans degree,” you are in good company.

Whatever you do, do not state you have a degree if you do not. In addition to the fact that it is immoral (a lie), the public spectacles of top executives in both public and private sectors who have been summarily dismissed when it was revealed they had lied about their credentials should be a strong deterrent to this ill-advised strategy.

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How to Get a Job Insider’s Advantage on LinkedIn

Using the JobsInsider tool on LinkedIn is one way you can find those all-important but elusive “insider” contacts at companies with job openings that interest you.

LinkedIn’s Help Center describes JobsInsider as follows:

“JobsInsider is a tool that comes with the LinkedIn Browser Toolbar for either Internet Explorer or Firefox. When you search for a job outside of LinkedIn and have JobsInsider turned on, you'll see:

• People in your network or groups who work at the company posting the job

• The option to request introductions to hiring managers and get your resume to the right person

JobsInsider currently works with Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, Craigslist, Dice, Vault, and more. You can set it up to turn on automatically when browsing a job site and when you open your browser.”

Click "Tools" at the foot of any LinkedIn page to download the browser toolbar. Or go to:

http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=jobsinsider_download

In addition to the sites listed above, JobsInsider works with SimplyHired, a popular job aggregator site.

This handy tool will show you any connections you have with companies that have relevant job openings for you. You can also leverage JobsInsider for the jobs that many companies post directly on LinkedIn. In this instance, you’ll be able to view the level of your connection (first, second, third) to the hiring manager.

With an introduction or referral, your cover letter automatically becomes 10 times more powerful. You can then say “so and so referred me,” and your letter and executive resume will move to the top of the stack.

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