Who Cares About Your Degree?
(Big Opportunity for
Professional and Trade Associations)
I graduated Cum Laude with a degree in computer science. Who Cares? No one does. Well, maybe my mother cares but that’s about it.
Having the degree on my resume helped me get a job at Eastman Kodak in 1988 but I have never once been asked about it since then. There are some nuances, of course. The biggest: outside of a 3-year post-acquisition stint at Community Brands, I have been self-employed since 1992. That being said, higher education is being disrupted across the board, and there are many, perhaps better, alternatives to the traditional college degree.
Google and Tesla don’t care either
Some of the largest, most progressive companies have discounted the value of a traditional degree. "College degrees are out of reach for many Americans, and you shouldn't need a college diploma to have economic security," writes Kent Walker, senior vice president of global affairs at Google. (At Google you can now earn $93k after taking a $300 course).
Elon Musk is famously quoted about the number of great minds out there without traditional degrees:
“If somebody graduated from a great university, that may be an indication that they will be capable of great things, but it’s not necessarily the case. If you look at, say, people like Bill Gates, Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs, these guys didn’t graduate from college, but if you had a chance to hire them, of course, that would be a good idea”
What Employers Care About
I can speak only for Gojectory but most of the organizations I deal with care primarily about one thing when it comes to hiring: can this person do the job?
During my time at NimbleUser, we hired a boatload of uber-talented people from RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). At one point we even had two RIT professors on staff. The computer science program there is second to none and we competed side by side with Apple and Microsoft at their job fairs for the most talented interns/graduates. While we did have some of their graduates’ washout for a variety of reasons, having an RIT 5 year software engineering degree was a pretty good indicator that they would be able to handle the job. But we also hired some other very talented people that did not have degrees and paid them the same.
At Gojectory we are more interested in Salesforce certifications/experience and nonprofit experience. If you have Salesforce certifications and Salesforce Trails (at NimbleUser we had a great team member with over 600 trails) we would like to talk to you (and so would a lot of other companies). We have found that people with these certifications do very well and it is a better indication of success than what degree or college you went to (if you went to one at all)
Three Big Opportunities for Associations
So how can associations leverage this shift by employers? Here are a few ideas:
Start or ramp up your certification programs. Associations are in the perfect spot to deliver the skills and proof of those skills that their membership needs to get a job in their industry. Associations have the respect knowledge, and industry connections to do this. I firmly believe this is the biggest opportunity for associations in 2021. Google Certificates, Amazon certification, and Salesforce certifications are all examples of first-mover success in this. Follow their lead.
Consider starting a boot camp. These are condensed, intensive learning sessions (either online, in person, or a hybrid model) where industry professionals train a group of highly motivated students 8 hours a day, 6 days a week for 3-9 months. Team Tree House used to offer a boot camp that would take someone (no experience necessary - they had waiters, truck drivers, nurses, etc.) from zero to being a full-stack developer in 9 months. The instructors were from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google. They had a 100% placement rate and the average starting salary was over $100k. I tried for a while to hire their graduates but was unsuccessful (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google hired all of them). About the closest thing I have seen in the association industry is ASAE’s CAE Program.
Remove the need to have a college degree to work at your organization. Associations that have this requirement could not hire Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Michael Dell. Look instead for relevant work experience and certifications. You will likely have a lot more candidates to choose from and they may be far better suited to get the job done.
Big Opportunity for Nonprofit Professionals
Get certified. Perhaps, like me, you graduated from college a long time ago. Up your skills with relevant certifications. For example, if your association uses Salesforce, make 2020 the year you crush out a certification or a set of Salesforce trails. I have set a personal goal of finally getting my Salesforce certifications this year (I have been working with Salesforce since 2005 so no time like the present).
In College or Going? Do This.
One of the strongest parts of the RIT Software Engineering degree was their requirement that every student had to do 2 internships to graduate. This provided real-world work experience for the student as well as a pretty decent income (some of our interns were making $25+/hour). As the employer, we loved this program - it helped augment our workforce and it gave us a chance to test drive a possible future employee (we ended up hiring a lot of people full time through our coop program).
I was an intern all four summers of college at the National Institute for Administrative Systems, a Hartford based software firm that developed and implemented ERP software for nonprofits. I probably learned more about software development there than I did at my school. In addition, it opened my eyes to working with nonprofit technology which became my lifelong passion.
Do yourself a big favor and do 2-3 internships/co-ops. If possible take long internships (6 months or greater). It may delay your graduation a bit but it will be well worth it.
Let’s Do This in 2021
My college years were formative in a number of ways and I loved every minute of the experience but times are changing and nonprofit organizations can be a big part of that change. Our tagline at Gojectory is Happily Disrupting the Status Quo. Some organization is going to disrupt the education your members pursue - it might as well be your organization!
I love to hear your take on this - comment below.
