Thinking out loud about Alternative Degree schemes

Is there really a need for alternative degrees in the market? It seem so based on the sales figures from the same done by diploma mills. In reality the concept is doable and makes sense but there has been a lot of damage done by the presence of diploma mills themselves. As a consumer, you know that today you can go online order a degree package and get it in the mail within a couple weeks or even days. Somehow in the back of your head this does not seem right even though you can make a case that it is legality.

Why is there such a need for alternative degree schemes? I think the main reasons would be cost, time and relevance. What do I mean by these? If you were to try and pursue a degree by exam or PLA today, the cost is fairly high and it takes a lot of time to prepare portfolios for each subject. Relevance means that most working adults does not see any of the general education courses as important at this stage of their career. They would be would taking classes just to get the degree and no application at their intended job search or projects. The other big reason that alternative degrees are needed is the high unemployment rate in the US and worldwide especially in developed countries. These people want to certify themselves in a reputable way and lower cost to pursue the job market quickly.

In order for a provider to pursue this field in a successful way, they need to build branding. Branding means they need to have a reputable process and staff to show the world that they are not just in it for the money and that they provide high quality evaluation and service.

There are many ways to get this done as I have outlined in several post earlier but again the missing thing is for the right people to implement. For example France has created laws to allow alternative means of earning a diploma or degree through the VAE legislation but this could not happen the same way in the US, since the US does not have a centralized education system.

However, the US is based on branding and innovation so if a provider can make the case, hire the right people and high quality process they could do well.  The challenge they have is that the establishment will always try to talk this down in terms of whether it is considered good quality especially with a threat to their revenue. It should not be a threat as it will be focused on people that meets certain experience requirements and the provider may even recommend courses from the traditional schools to meet graduation requirements.

How should an alternative degree or qualification be presented? Most US recruiters are locked on the term degree and from my own experience they are not equipped to understand when someone has a clearly equivalent qualification. While saying that, I think its better to start out offering a qualification similar to how City and Guilds offer the Senior Awards in the UK and other countries. This means you need to create awareness and branding in the market with credential evaluators and recruiters to understand the usefulness of this qualification. Once you get traction in the market and endorsements then you could look into degree programs.

Another interesting model that could do well, is to develop the system and use the franchise model to build it. Partner with willing universities to offer the qualifications to locals or online. This also help with acceptance since you have academic bodies on board with this.

I write a lot about this topic as somehow I think its a very big vacuum ready to be filled and will not be going away any time soon.

The best Credentials for an IT Consulting Career

Are you an experience IT person? looking to take things to the next level in your career without getting hook to the rat race in the corporate environment? IT Consulting or Management Consulting gives you the benefit of recognizing your technical knowledge while giving you influence at the executive level. To improve your chances,  you may want to consider some of the best credentials that could make you into a recognized IT Consultant. Lets break this done for clarify and ease of implementation.

1. Experience – You will need to leverage your experience to convince people that you have a track record in the field. The main skills to highlight would be good problem solving and business analysis in addition to specific technical skills. Write down your intended area of focus and why you would make the best consultant in that field.

2. Trends – The first thing you need to do before you go out and acquire new certifications or credentials is to see what are the trends in the industry and where things could be in the next 5-10 years. For example areas such as cloud computing is becoming very hot. The presentation of cloud technology is new but its actually built on well known technology out there. Search the job boards and see what is in demand.

Audit your skills and experience relative to these trends. This is basically a gap analysis so to speak. Write down the areas you need to improve on and then develop your plan around that.

3. Specialized Area – IT has become a very wide profession, so you need to pick a specialize technical area. For example there is application development, Business Analysis, Infrastructure and many combinations of technical areas. In the infrastructure space, the Cisco CCIE  or CCDE is probably the best option. There are some security, Virtualization, Linux and Microsoft type certifications that will help as well. In terms of application development, you should look at certification in the most widely used enterprise development areas. For example areas such as  Java, Web,  Oracle database applications, SAP, Microsoft and many others. What is common among these that will give you the best bang for the buck?

4. Degree – While a specific degree is not extremely critical for consulting jobs, I think the MBA has become a well known base qualification for some consulting companies and can also help you with executive level engagements even as an independent consultant. You can get a reasonable MBA below $10,000.00, so consider this as a good option to boost your chances with some recruiters. If you don’t have any degree at all, I would recommend the ICCP CCP as a starting point. This credential proves that you are an educated IT professional.

5. ITIL – This certification at least the foundation is highly recommended for IT consultants. Its fairly easy to learn and if you search online, there is one source offering the foundation training and certification exam for about $160.00. When you search for ITIL in job boards such as dice.com, you will see many listings around this. ITIL covers the process element of IT Management, so its good to understand how you fit into the process and use it to be well organized.

6. Project Management Professional (PMP) – Any senior IT consultant will need to have a working knowledge of project management and the PMP is well recognized in project management. While there are other Project Management certifications out there that are very good, this one is well recognized by resume reviewers.

7. Consulting Certifications – There are several certifications for Consultants in general especially management consulting and these can help depending on the clients you target or jobs that you seek. They are not mandatory for success in this field but won’t hurt to have. One to look into for IT consultants is the Certified IT consultant offered by the  ICCP. Also check out the Certified Management Consultant credential.

8. Networking – Once you get all the relevant credentials that will help you to stand out, the next biggest thing is to meet people that can help you. Have you ever ran into someone that is clearly less qualified than you but they have the dream job or contract that you would like? That is the power of good networking and focus. The best strategy I think for this is to at least have your linkedin.com profile up to date with the goal of selling yourself. An extension of that would be to start a blog specific to your focus professional area. You can write articles on the topic or share other current news articles on that blog but keep it focused. The next step is to have business cards with both your linkedin profile and blog address for sharing at networking events. Look out for free speaking engagements or even put on your own free seminar to discuss a specific topic.

9. Professional membership – This is a good extension to the whole concept of networking. It can help in terms of meeting fellow consultants to learn from and sharpen your skills as well as meeting potential employers or clients.

The demand for IT consultants or professionals are very high at this point. The important thing is to find that focus area that you love and have the highest motivation for success. Once you have that aligned good credentials and networking can surely help you to succeed quickly.

P.S. Bear in mind that consulting is a profession where track record and trust is critical to getting into the door. It is probably easier to get into a top consulting firm as a bright young graduate than as an experience professional. It just goes to show that they really want to recruit people at the top of their game in their eyes.

Representing Education on your resume accurately

Have you been honest about how you represent yourself on a resume? The last news about Yahoo CEO resume problems seem to bring up an important issue we have mentioned on this blog. To be honest with you, he did not lie that much about his degree in reality. He did graduate from the college mentioned and did get one of the majors mentioned which is accounting but his degree did not include Computer Science which he had mentioned. In all due respect, he could have studied computer science on his own and just decided to mention it there for completeness, so it may not have been a deliberate lie. In the end, people would say that if you are at that level you need to be honest anyway and honestly he was not even if its a small offense.

We have mentioned the use of life experience degrees here to kind of add some cosmetic enhancements to your resume legally. Bear in mind that you would have gotten this degree legally and have the right to claim and show it based on US laws. The issue always come back to that chicken and egg situation. If you have someone with very good reputation and track record, it can become a sticky point to mention a degree from a school that is of a low standard. Most of the time, the issue is not competence but someone who is just out to get you. Those persons at regular professional grades may not have a problem but at least you need to be aware of the risk involved in how you represent stuff.

Could the Yahoo CEO get away by claiming that he earned a Masters in Computer Science from say Belford University? I honestly think this would have done more damage to his reputation since these people were just out to get him anyway. They would just say he got the degree from a known diploma mill and whatever comes with that. In the end, he would not have done anything legally or ethically wrong but they will use the arguments to make it seem wrong for a CEO to do.

What then is the solution to such an issue?

1. We would say avoid using life experience degrees for professional use. You can do it temporarily and in select situations but don’t plan to keep this permanent.

2. If you decide to enhance your resume with such degree, try to play it safe in terms of school name and other details. For example, use abbreviation instead of the full name or leave the name off but keep the major and graduation year etc.

3. Always make sure you know the subject that you decide to acquire a life experience degree in. Meaning, you should have good experience in that field, take courses and get key books written on relevant topics.

4. Have a plan to get a real accredited degree or professional qualification – There are a lot of low cost option nowadays and they are flexible in how to earn credit. Online accredited degrees are mainstream and available from top schools, so not much excuses.

5. If you have a lot of experience and well respected then try to get membership in professional associations at the fellowship level. UK societies are very good with this sort of option.

In conclusion be honest about yourself. Do not misrepresent anything about your credential on a resume. Yes, life experience degrees are legal but the world does not necessarily see them in a good light, so be careful about how you use them if you have to. Resume fraud can be more than just mentioning degrees but this piece is normally much easier to target.

Clarify your resume and qualifications with a Credential Evaluation

Are you anxious to have some credential on your resume? Especially something that says you have degree level knowledge? Then the best and safest way is to look into credential evaluations as such a means.

The most respected credentialing agencies are the ones that are members of NACES. Most times they would get an opinion of the degree equivalency from a University, so that does give some credibility to the standing of that evaluation.

The next level of credential evaluation are a few agencies that gives an equivalency diploma that matches the level of your degree. It looks like a degree and you can frame it and other things. However, these agencies are not top level recognized but this could work for most job hunting situation. The two companies I know of are California University FCE and North American Evaluation Group.

This approach is good if you have no degree or if you want to get recognized one level up from your current degree. We still believe that if you have no degree, a recognized certification in your field is the best bet for the short term. You could get the certification first then get the evaluation but it will be definitely help your employment chances.

How do you represent these on your resume? First you need to be honest but at same time you want to experience that you have the equivalent degree knowledge. If you are too forthcoming in terms of this being a credential evaluation it could hurt the initial screening process but you could use a term like “US degree equivalent” or similar for your respective country.

Conclusion

This process is mostly important to get pass the screening process but most good managers will focus on your actual skills and experience for the job. When applying for more regulated jobs such as government and other bodies, please make sure to disclose the relevant information to avoid any issues.

The cost for these credential evaluation programs range from about US$250 to $500.00. You could consider a degree credential from a confidential source to go with this evaluation but it is very optional.

How to build a compelling resume fairly fast.

Are you worried about the credentials you have on your resume? We will provide a quick set of tips that you can use to advance your case and really get the job you like.

The first thing is that you need to be good at something in your field. This means you need to assess your skills and job target to make sure that you have the competency to do well in an interview. Here are a list of tips you can use to improve the credentials on your resume.

1. Degree – what is your degree situation? Do you have a bachelors or masters? If you have a masters in the field of interest then I think this post may not give you much pointers to improve your resume except that you should get a professional resume writing service to help you out. If your degrees are in an unrelated field then we can definitely provide some tips later. We will discuss alternative degree options in another bullet point.

2. Certifications – Assuming that you need to improve the credential side of the resume, the first advice is to get the best respected technical certification in the field of choice. If you have no degree at all, you can boost this by taking some certifications from sites such as Brainbench.com. The aim here is to demonstrate that you have solid theoretical knowledge in that market.

3. Respected University Course – Even if you have a degree but not from a well known school, its a good idea to take some short online course from one of those well known schools out there. This will give you the right to add them to your linkedin profile and your resume especially. This could cost more than other sources but it goes a long way in circles that focus on training from top universities.

4. Credential Evaluation – If you don’t have any degree but at least ten years of very good experience, you should consider getting a credential evaluation to establish your equivalent standing to an academic degree. This approach normally equates 3 years of experience to 1 academic year (meaning 12 years to qualify for 4 year degree). This is a legitimate document which can go a far way to get respected in your job application. If you have taken classes and corporate training that could go a far way to reduce the time requirement. Stick with credential agencies that are members of NACES.

4. Alternative Degrees – Now we come to a very interesting point. If you don’t have a degree or think you need one level up, then in the short term you could consider some other options to get past the robots or screening checks. We are talking about the dreaded life experience degree. The reality is that these degrees are legal in nature but will have issues to represent real academic learning. In this case, your goal is to get past the degree screening checks to even get noticed. My recommendation; if asked about these type of degree do be honest as much as you need to. Do not try to lie about how you get it, that is where you get in trouble. The more experienced you are, the less of an issue this type of degree is in an interview. In other words if you are 24 years old and have a Masters from a life experience school, its going to be hard to defend why you have such a degree when chances are that your experience or training would not have matched that level. In summary, I am saying get the life experience degree for cosmetic purposes but be careful about how you represent it generally. Basically you have the right to show it but you are not saying it actually made you smart.

5. Books – In general books that are well focused on your field can really help you grow and prepare for the next job. This also most likely useful if you decide to add a life experience degree on your resume. You need to be up to speed on the academic information around the degree that you decide to show. In other words, don’t claim something that you can’t defend to any extent.

Summary

The above approach can go a far way to improving the credentials on your resume. The real goal is to be competent and focus on what you can offer your potential employer. In other words, do not focus on fooling any one it does not help you or them in the process. Just to clarify when I mention life experience degrees, its better to avoid them but using in the case here is just for cosmetic or social engineering.

Could you be a rocket scientist in your Career?

There is a saying that genius is 2% inspiration and 98% hard work. I believe that statement 100%. A lot of times we see all those well recognized scientist with Nobel prize and hundreds of invention and we kind of think those people are of some special breed. I strongly believe you can do the same in your field of interest. Here are some pointers that could make you a rocket scientist at whatever point in your career. In fact these could help to raise your salary fairly quick.

1. Find your Voice – This means you need to find where your interest and strength is. It has been proven over and over that to achieve peak performance you need to connect with your main interest. You may be struggling and ineffective because you are in the wrong field or role.

2. Intensity – Once you connect with your voice, put in a lot of effort. We tend to focus on the success that people have but we miss the background work they have done to get those success. The more you put in the more you will get out and finally see success. This intensity could conflict with other things such as family and social settings but you have to make the choice on what is more important.

3. Time Management – There are two extremes that we need to address here. The one person that put all their time into professional work and the other that will only spend as much as is necessary to get by. I think its best to meet somewhere in the middle of those. If you do not put in good time, you will be on top of your profession while if you put in too much time you will isolate yourself from the world. As you mature, the one way you can leverage time better is to develop good relationships and networking, so that you could have things being done while you hang out with the family.

4. Knowledge – You will get lots of knowledge from simply working and experimenting but you will need to keep learning. This could mean taking single classes, conferences, seminars, reading or get more advance degrees. Keeping on top of the news in your profession will also definitely help your development.

5. Share – When all is said and done, you will not be seen as the rocket scientist if you do not share your work with others. You will either need to write, present, lecture or a combination. On the other hand, you will need to develop a system to get your work to solve real problems and advance society in general.

6. Decisions – This a key element in achieving anything. The decision you make you decide where you go in life. Its important to analyze situations and see how they will play out with your game plan for the long term. For example, do you take a lesser paying job to allow you more room for more learning in the right field? The biggest difference in the decision by some people to stay on message regardless of the circumstances they face.

7. Humility – I had to put this here as I really love the idea of being humble. Most of the truly successful people in this world are actually very humble. They are not full of themselves as they need to share and give back to society.

There is no question that people that have been very successful have put in a lot of time and effort to achieve such. For example some ethnic groups will focus on getting their kids to get the best grades and attend the best schools. This will get them into the model of working hard as soon as they are mature  enough to recognize the benefit. Some times the down side to that approach is to create a group of elitist people but  knowing how to balance you can get the achievement and still be as humble as anyone.

Bring out the rocket scientist in you and work hard at your profession.

Could you be a top performer now?

As we discuss about career and personal development on this blog, there is a lot of stereotypes in the business and employment world. This is especially the case when you work for someone. We all know about the stereotype of the technical wizards out there. Could you be one of them and is it too late in your career?

The answer to us is yes, you could be the top performer that everyone wants to get a piece and get to know. How is this possible? Its very simple, you first have to identify what you love to do, then put in the time and effort to be the best in the field. When we say the best, this is not about competitiveness but to know as much as you can and to keep up with all the trends in that field.

How can you get the word out that you know your stuff? There are many ways to do this, some of them are to join a recognize professional body and be active, another way is to publish books or technical papers on the topic. The key word for getting recognition is networking and the tools mentioned above does give you that angle to get your foot into the door.

Does it matter what age you are to get this on track? No. You can do this any time. The first step is to love something and jump into it 110%. Spend as much time learning and practicing the craft as you can. This could mean going back to school but you may not have to. You could learn things on your own, share things on a personal blog and a host of other things to get yourself up to speed and be known.

The stereotypical top performer sometimes has a very imbalance like and you probably does not want that. You want to be able to get things done without being a social snob. There are so many tools out there to allow you to do that and one word that is critical in this process is “Leverage”.

Career Management for Adults – Part 2

Well, we kind of discussed the process aspects in Career Management part 1 on how to find your true calling. In this post we will focus on how to identify transferable skills. Across most professions, there are common skills that could help you to easily fit in once you have the required foundation skills. Here are some areas to focus on.

1. Core Skills – Each profession has core skills that you need to get anything done. Take the case of an accountant versus an engineer or an actor versus the producer. You would simply need to either go back to school, get on the job training or seek certification in the field. In summary, this skill set is going to be role specific and maybe the only one that you need to focus on learning for career change.

2. Planning – Some professional jobs such as Project Management and general management, require that you have good planning skills, so if you have done planning in the past you can mention on your resume in the relevant section.

3. Tracking – This is simple skill that applies to most professions even entry level ones. You need to know what needs to be done for a specific task and make sure you know the progress, bottlenecks and other related activities.

4. Communication – This is a wide area but could come in different forms. For example, generating a status report that is clear and to the point. Presentations are another area that cuts across professions, the same fundamentals apply despite the audience change. Another important aspects of communication is dealing with customers directly or in other words managing difficult situations where communication would play a key role.

5. Design – If you worked in a profession that involved designing things whether its process design or physical product most of the approaches could be transferable. The key is to look each area then document the similarities and differences then try to fill those gaps with either reading, training or mentoring.

6. Decision Making – This is a key skill set especially in management or very senior roles but also could be very relevant for any technical professional. How to assess a situation or project and make reasonable decisions. There is no perfect way in this skill set but being good at running through options and articulating your decision could get you places.

Those are just a few of the areas that could be considered common with most professions. The best approach is to get a job description for your current or previous job then compare them with the target profession you have in mind.

What would be an ideal life experience degree program? – Part 2

We discussed previously in Life Experience degrees part 1 about different ways to evaluate experience to issue a degree. We need to step back and ask the question; Why do we need to worry about getting a degree in the first place? Why get a degree based on experience? Would it have any real value?

The ideal degree is one that you could use anywhere without any academic prejudice. People may argue that a degree from Cuba would not be readily accepted in the US but I doubt this is totally true. Yes, there is some political stigma in terms of acceptance but people know that Cuba has very good standards of education anyway. The same cannot be said of schools that offer life experience degrees. From most people’s perspective, these schools are basically a website selling paper. Yes, it could be considered legal when you look at all the laws but we all know the person did not have to prove conclusively that they deserve such a degree. In addition to the previous options I presented about ways to evaluate candidates, I would love to outline some principles for issuing the degree.

1. Quality – The degree should only be issued to someone that demonstrate that they meet the normal requirements for that degree and level. There should be rigorous standards and mechanisms to evaluate such a person. I do think this could be done in a streamlined way with commitment.

2. Honesty – I think most universities by their own admission would fall short on this count. Yes, they have lots of disclaimers but you should not say something in large print to sell your service then put the most important factors in fine prints. To me, honesty means you should say exactly what the degree means and how the student earned it. It actually helps as people can put the candidate for the job in context. Keeping with the honesty mandate, the transcript should reflect the persons knowledge base and not fake.

3. Utility – Most of the known life experience degrees cannot be used for government jobs, licensing, immigration, further studies and lots of other things. This means they are very limited for the graduate. The provider should seek to address those issues to improve utility of the degree and they are not hard if you are serious about helping people.

4. Customer Focus – Again, it comes across that life experience providers are in it to make money, so they don’t want to waste time with evaluating resumes, marking exams and all the other activities to run a quality school. As a provider you should focus on the customer’s need. The customer wants a degree to help them, not to be embarrassed when they mention it. You cannot just say its legal when it does not have any quality and work behind it on your end.

5. Accreditation – This is a very good thing to have but showing an association that has no real standing only goes further to question your reputation. If the accreditation is not government recognized or established within the industrial context it is a waste of time. Its good to seek out means to earn recognition but don’t do it to fool your potential students.

Conclusion

As a consumer, the best bet out there today in terms of getting a degree that is usable in most situations is to look for a low cost provider such as UNISA. However, it would take me at least 3 years to earn such degree. Therefore, the need is valid for credible means to earn a proper degree at reasonable cost and well respected.

I am hoping sooner than later, someone will take on the challenge to address these imbalance with the education system.

Career Management for Adults – Part 1

This blogs focus is primarily on adult educational strategies but in order to be successful, its important to have a good career management strategy. Lets discuss some things that will help in this process.

Clarity

You need to be clear about what you want in life. Lets put aside income for moment even though that is important. Regardless of what you are doing today try to focus on what makes you excited, don’t be afraid to dream and aim high in this exercise. Clarity is very important to be ultimately successful in life.

Align

Once you have some degree of clarity, you now need to decide if you are where you want to be. If you are then maybe you only need to be focused on how to strengthen your current situation and that is where the discussion about courses and mentoring could play a role. On the other hand if you are not where you wanted to be like most of us, then you need to come up with a gap analysis of the distance between these points. Again things like education and mentoring could play a key role. Bear in mind that there are multiple roles you could play in a given field. For example if you like music, you could sing, manage singers, play an instrument, sell music, produce music or any thing that is related.

Action

Now that you have clarity and alignment, you need to execute on what you think is needed to achieve your highest level of achievement. Put together a realistic action plan with all the required resources, cost and schedule and hit the road. In a lot of cases you may not need any formal education but just need some good mentoring to get you on track. In the case of the educational aspects, you have many free courses to highly expensive but respected choices.

The bottom line is that your career belongs to you and you only. You have to be proactive about the things that are important in your career. When you think of the dreaded layoff fear that most people experience, the ones that are likely to get this experience are those that are miss fits in their professions. Even some times even with the best performance some other factors can affected you but proper alignment does minimize the risk.