Proving Your Education – Résumés

This post continues the topic I started in my book review of Proving You’re Qualified.

Here’s the dilemma. You’re about to search for a new job. You have some work experience behind you. You’ve learned some things along way. Perhaps you’ve read some books, learned on the job, taken some workshops, or otherwise gained some great experience, knowledge and skills that a potential employer will undoubtedly find of benefit to their company. Now you’re looking for a new job or a promotion, but you don’t have a college degree. What do you do?

College degrees (or professional certifications) are far too often the litmus test by which companies have filtered out job applicants. Assuming that someone is a better fit for a job because they hold a college degree often turns out to be a terrible way to judge job candidates. Luckily, many companies are seeing the wisdom in having a more broad set of applicant requirements. You’ll often now see the words “college degree required – or equivalent work experience” listed in a job opening description. As more and more baby boomers retire and companies seek out the required workers in a dwindling pool of talent, I expect this trend to continue.

Sure, for some professions such as physician, attorney or architect, formal education is not just a good idea, but the only way to go. But for the majority of jobs, including many professional jobs, a college degree means little when determining if someone is right for a position.

Even for employment positions advertised as requiring a college degree, there are sometimes ways to get past this requirement. If you can make a direct, personal contact with someone at a company they can often arrange for the college degree requirement to be waived if there is a compelling reason to do so. There is always someone at some level of the company that can waive the requirement unless it’s one of those jobs that absolutely requires a college degree.

So what do you do? How do you prove to a potential employer that you have what it takes to do a job as well as someone with a degree (if not better)? The answer is to create an education portfolio.

What is an education portfolio? It’s documentation, presented in a concise and easy-to-view form, of your job/life experience, learning, skills, competencies and other factors that taken together comprise your unique, individual education. Truthfully, even if you have a college degree, a good education portfolio will give you added credibility when interviewing for a job.

So what goes into an education portfolio? It can vary by individual and job target, but a good one might consist of these elements:

• Your résumé.
• Letters of recommendation.
• Testimonials.
• Work samples.
• Documentation of learning.

I’ll discuss each of these elements individually starting with your résumé in this post and the other elements in future posts.

Your Résumé

When looking for a job, your résumé is your most important piece of marketing collateral. And that’s how you should look at it. You’re marketing yourself to prospective employers. So your résumé should sell you in the strongest manner possible. In one or two pages your résumé should tell someone what you know, what you’ve accomplished, and how your knowledge and experience can translate into a better bottom line for their company.

Writing a résumé can be tricky. If you can afford it, hiring a professional résumé writer can be beneficial. I would avoid hiring someone through a job board’s résumé service or without some good references. Like the rest of the professional world, quality varies dramatically. Ask around to see if any of your friends have hired a professional résumé writer. Don’t ask someone at your current place of employment unless you’re absolutely sure the person will hold your inquiry in confidence. You don’t want to tip off your employer that you’re looking for a new job.

If you don’t know of someone, consulting a professional organization’s roster like the National Résumé Writers Association is a good idea. If you choose to write your résumé yourself and you have decent writing skills, you can produce a good résumé on your own. I recommend you read The Elements of Resume Style: Essential Rules and Eye-Opening Advice for Writing Resumes and Cover Letters that Work by Scott Bennett. It’s an excellent book you can read in a day and it will give you great basic advice on creating your résumé along with some useful job search advice.

Come back to my blog as I talk about the other elements of an education portfolio in future posts.