This is a topic close to my heart –
(as someone who has no degree, but who has addressed MBA students at UCT Graduate School of Business; as someone with a basic matric, but who has been invited as guest speaker addressing Professors and Heads of Department at for eg. Central University of Technology; as someone with no formal training, but who has been quoted in Business Day, Financial Mail and other illustrious media)
– and it shatters a myth that keeps people low, hopeless and accepting of mediocrity, when more is possible, sooner than they think. It’s a piece by Steve Chandler:
Credentials were vital in the old world—the world of my father and mother.
You’d apply for a job and people would say, “Where did you get your degree?” or “What’s your degree in?”
“Alcoholism,” I would say. “Bankruptcy and divorce.”
And you know what? They didn’t care.
Oh, they weren’t exactly happy with my credentials. But they moved quickly to the next question-the question they really wanted to ask—-“Can you help us?”
Yes, I think so, or at least let’s do a pilot seminar, a trial workshop and find out. I ended up training more than 20 Fortune 500 companies that way and a couple hundred smaller businesses, schools and organizations.
Not because of my credentials. But because I could help. I could serve.
That’s good news for all of us today. It’s no longer who you know or what your credentials are, now it’s WHAT YOU CAN DO!
This allows you to build your skills and deepen your professional strength any way you like. It’s all online now. What do you want to learn how to do? It’s all right there.
A woman client told me not long ago in subdued, breathy tones (the kind of voice reserved for the most sacred stories of suffering and victimization, stories that have formed the helpless robot), “I am sad that I never had the education that I should have had. Not being given that educational advantage, my ability to get a high-paying job has been limited.”
And I could hear the hushed reverence in her voice as she described the tenets of her victim religion. It was deeply personal for her, and the fact that she was “sharing” her weakness with me was an example of how “authentic” she had learned to be.
Except for one little thing. One flaw in the presentation: it was all nonsense. She could have learned anything any time including now. This now, yes. This very minute inside this very day today.
People hire you today because of what you can do.
[Of course when entering the job market with any qualification or experience, but especially if you have no degree, etc, you HAVE TO present yourself more powerfully, aggressively and in a smart, focussed way. Your CV, for eg. has to be hard hitting. Contact me about helping you with yours, I’m at gerardlr [at] gmail.com.
