Are college degrees REALLY necessary for success?

As I peruse the jobs listings, I can't help but notice that virtually all regional and corporate level positions have requirements for a Bachelors Degree or higher. With more companies using outside services, or even in their own HR departments, to "screen" applicants, it seems that this "requirement" is eliminating some potential, top producing folks from consideration. There are those folks who got into this industry in the 70's, when experience was far more important than college, and your availability to work was more important than getting a degree. These people are highly successful, and have executive level experience and abilities due to their time in the industry. After all, which would you rather work for, a person who has worked their way up through the ranks to a CEO position, or someone who has been in the industry for a few years with a degree in Spanish. Unfortunately, with a screening requirement of a college degree, the person who makes the most sense for success will never meet the hiring person or team. I welcome ideas and thoughts. VS

Hi Vicki,

I believe it reaaly depends on the company. I started in the MF industry in the late 80's, straight out of high school. At that time I had no career path in mind and thought I would take a year to decide my future. I grew to love the industry from the beginning and knew that my career was in apartment management. I learned the ranks from the bottom up. Finding a company with the right culture and growth was key for me. In mid - 2000 I was promoted from PM to RPM for one of the largest REITS. It took time, dedication and hard work to succeed. I hope that I am always looked at for my industry experience and not a designation from a college - although I do realize that many may over look me due to my lack thereof. That being said, I would apply for any position you feel you are qualified for, regardless of whether or not you meet what is listed as a predetermined requirement. GOOD LUCK!

Hello Vicki,

I agree with Annemarie, you keep applying and then once you get in show your value and make us all proud! I can tell you though that there are those schools which will give you credit for work you have all ready done and you could be closer to a degree than you know!

There are those companies that will look at experience over schooling. My first position I interviewed against 8 other personnel and I was the only one that did not have a college degree at the time, but I had the experience and I told the interviewer my thoughts and not what he wanted to hear.

Sometimes a little volunteer work helps in the profession as well. You are marketing your skills and at the same time learning something new as well as giving experience gained.

Go to networking groups an stay tuned. Now I have said all of this to also say if you are only looking at the position which you left, you may have to get your foot in the door at a lower level and work your way back up to, but do your homework to ensure that there is room for advancement.

Hope this helped!

@ Vicki-

The market did change in regard to degree requirements. For full disclosure I now have an MBA- but started my career in MF with no degree and was able to be a good contributor to the team. In my opinion, I think what HR folks have found is that people with degrees tend to have better critical thinking skills and may be a more suitable risk profile. While you are accurate that they are likely passing up on some good talent, the desired outcome for HR is to place well while reducing risk. There is likely enough evidence to support use of the degree screen to make it worth losing the outlier few candidates in order to be more expedient in the hiring process. I recently worked on an effort to hire a property manager, out initial resume response was nearly 400 people who thought they were a good fit. We obviously don't want to interview 400 people- screens do help. In the end who got hired? Somebody who came to us through our network. Work your network, if you have done a good job in the industry, the degree won't matter.

Best of luck on your journey.

Although it is great that some of you got started in property management as leasing professionals and moved all the way up to executive levels, I don't think it happens any more. And being with the right company??? What is the right company? I worked for a small management company that was not growing so I left and went to a large company. I applied for every open RPM position and was passed over every time even though I was a Property Manager of the Year nominee at the national level! I was always told I "need more experience" - how do you get this experience if you are never trusted to manage more than one or two properties at a time? It is very discouraging. Yes, it is good to have a job, but I want more than a job; I feel this is my career. Finally, I did ask someone at another company why he thought I was not given a promotion to RPM and he told me that if I studied the executives there, they all had college degrees and were hired in starting out as RPMs, some with experience and some without. And while I knew this to be the case, it doesn't make me any less discouraged. I don't have the money to go back to school yet, but I guess that is where I will go so I can knock that hurdle out of the way. In the meantime, I take every seminar, webinar, and class I can and earned my CAM.

Hello Sad but Striving,

Many roads lead to a position. The most successful people have had many failures before they get there. The main thing is not to give up. Keep hammering away and you will make it. If you do not, then you will know that you have done your best. Check out Abraham Lincoln and how many times he failed at things and ultimately became our 16th President.

Me, and there are other like minded people will place my money on experience any day. Now, here is what I look at and there are others that look at it as well. When you talk about the future and you know you need more formal education, then put that in their as a goal and have it mapped out.

They say those with higher education have better critical thinking skills. Lets break that down on how that is determined; Critical thinking has an element in it called ambiguity and conflicting statements. So, rather than hard facts being put out, the students of higher learning are give as an example written dialogues to analyze. Then in small groups, students must identify the different viewpoints of each person in the dialogue. The students must look for biases, presence or exclusion of important evidence, alternative interpretations, misstatement of facts, and errors in reasoning. The students as a group must decide which view is the most reasonable. You now have an exercise in using and developing critcal thinking.

Now having said all that; a brick layer can place those bricks and build you a wall. It is the engineer that comes up with stress points and whether or not the ground in which the building is going up on can take the weight and if it needs to be prepped before hand. The brick layer only wants to know where he has to put the wall and goes to work.

Then the other question people do not ask themselves is why they want a certain job. Is it because they believe they can do more good, or is it for the money? If it is for the money, then I can tell you that there is going to be an unhappy person.

I have done the Regional and well as Community and I was far happier at the community level because I loved looking into the faces of the families that were happy because of what my team did to make their homes and community safe and a welcome place to come to at the end of the day.

OK, I have rumbled on and I guess out of all of this is "DO NOT GIVE UP" Have a plan to improve and then do it!

All-

I have a lot of thoughts on this topic. While I'm a believer in higher education, there's a lot to be said about years of industry experience. Ideally, I think a combination of the two is a recipe for success. College teaches you so many valuable lessons that hands on experience doesn't always afford.

Some examples (and some of these can certainly be learned in working, but it depends on a lot of circumstances):

* Teamwork. College demands you work in groups; both leading a team and being a member of one. Working in our industry, chances are you'll have this same experience, but maybe not. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who's attended college who hasn't been in this "team" situation.

* Business. When someone says The 4P's, you're not rushing back to google it. You're also not embarrassed when your boss asks you to take a grammar workshop. Not understanding the difference between their mistakes over there at the community while they're working on preparing the market survey you've asked for... will also help you not appear to be intellectually inferior to your subordinates. This is a quick way to lose respect.

* Time Management. Having to figure out, plan for and execute getting from your apartment to your 8:15am Political Science course, then across campus in 5 minutes flat to your Intro to Marketing class and then back across campus to your job in the Bookstore... all without being late and simultaneously organizing tonight's keg party... you'll truly understand how to get things accomplished and not let anything slip through the cracks.

At the end of the day though, if you want to move up or get a job, you have to believe in yourself, network within the industry, build your own personal brand (and I'm not talking websites or business cards... but knowing who you are, what you want and where you want to go, is paramount), demonstrate your knowledge and well; invest in yourself.

Maybe that looks like "going back to school" (and there are a lot of options to pay for school these days... loans, grants, scholarships, EVEN if you're not 18), maybe that's getting industry designations, maybe you DO need to gain a little more experience (and perhaps you could gain it by speaking up and asking for more responsibility in your current role)... whatever it is, if things aren't playing out the way you want them to... maybe it's time to honestly reflect on what you need to attain your personal success in today's business market.

Tara

All:

I am the first to admit that my education was not traditional. After high school, I joined the Army; where I learned teamwork and leadership skills better than any college can teach them. I returned home and did go to college for a couple of years; only to withdraw as I was being pulled to help with my mom's recovery from a dangerous brain tumor surgery that occured the week I arrived home. These responsibilities caused my studies to suffer to the point where I was not performing at school. I never returned; rather I worked full time in retail and split that time with responsibilities at home. I worked for some major retailers and spent 15 years in that industry before getting fed up. Two of the locations I worked at were used as management training stores and I was asked to train new managers. I quickly realized that some of the people I trained had book smarts, but absolutely NO street smarts or skills that worked in that environment. I will say that, while I had some successful trainees that actually listened and learned; most knew less about the art of customer service than I had forgotten.

It was then that I realized that my learning style does not suit classroom learning. You can show me something a couple of times, guide me a time or two, then let me do it on my own. At that point, I have learned whatever skill I need; but be available to me if I get stuck. For me, if I have to do any kind of training; I prefer to do it online as I control the pace and the schedule AND I can apply the learning right away. A perfect example is when an employer had me go through Tax Credit certification training online; which I did at home 'in my shorts'. What I noticed was because I was able to apply the learning right away; the quality and quantity of my work product increased with a decrease in errors immediately as I had a better understanding of what I was doing.

As far as I am concerned, a college degree does not impress me much unless you are a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher. I say this knowing I have a cousin that is a professional student and has multiple degrees in multiple subjects (she gets a degree and changes her major repeatedly). She is in her 60's and has never had a job in the real world outside of teaching assistant type positions at the schools she attended.

I am not a big believer in higher education, unless you are going into a highly specialized field I just don't get it. What good is a degree in liberal arts if you end up working as a bank teller? I only have a GED. I dropped out of high school the day I turned 18 to take an assistant manager position at the Burger King I'd been working at for 2 years. At 21 while my friends were either still in college or taking any job they could find to pay back their loans, I was buying my first home. Maybe knowing I didn't have a degree made me work a little harder, and I definitely don't advocate dropping out of school, it's the path I chose and have no regrets. I started as a leasing consultant 14 years ago and never looked back. I've built a reputation for myself in the industry that I'm proud of. I have my career path mapped out and plan to move up, but not until I have met all the goals I've set for myself as a Community Manager first.
Who would you rather hire someone fresh out of college with a degree that doesn't pertain to the industry, or someone who is a self starter and has risen through the ranks?
As a side note, just because someone is a great community manager it does not mean they will be a great RPM.

Necessary for success? No. Anyone can be successful--a degree is not a prerequisite. However, many good jobs place an emphasis on higher education , especially in the multifamily industry. I also don't think major is all that important, either although it helps. I say this because my major was in business and I certainly don't remember all the little details of my studies. My two cents about people with degrees and why they're valuable: they can think CRITICALLY. this is extremely important in the business world. If nothing else, people with degrees are more thorough thinkers and better problem analyzers. IMHO, college taught me this above and beyond anything else. If I have two candidates applying for a position--all else equal--I would hire the one with the degree. A degree doesn't just show critical thinking skills, it shows ambition and determination--important traits all hiring managers want to see in any business setting. 

This discussion reminds me of the season of Trump's show The Apprentice (yes I watch both versions and while I enjoy the processes involved in both; I would rather see them drop the Celebrity version) where he took the 'Book Smart' people (with degrees) against the 'Street Smart' people (no degrees, but stacked in experience).... I seem to remember the street smart people did better.

Remember the guy that developed the predecessor to Excel (it was a program called Visicalc)... the guy never graduated HIGH SCHOOL and sold his program to Billy! The guys behind Hotmail also sold to Billy and made a bunch of money without a college degree.

I am not even sure that Zuckerberg graduated college. I know he attended Harvard, but did he finish?

It really boggles my mind that there is the assumption that those who have a college degree have superior critical thinking skills, more so than those who do not possess this piece of paper. History provides us with so many examples of outstanding thinkers that I didn't even need to do any research: Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, Ansel Adama, founder of Tumblr, David Karp, Debbie Fields (Mrs. fields Cookies), Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Ford, Kemmons Wilson (Holiday Inn), Joyce Hall (Hallmark), Ray Kroc, shoe designer, Steve Madden ... And my list could go on.

I will say this, that piece of paper can get you a foot in some companies' doors, but I will guarantee you that diploma does not guarantee their success.

I challenge you to consider the person who saw a need and fulfilled it. What about the person who developed a partnership with a community college to educate day care workers in early childhood education? What about the person who finally got a soccer program implemented at the middle school when no one else could after fifteen years of trying? What about the person who with ZERO experience was hired to set up, network, train staff, and create the curriculum for K-6 for the computer education program, the first of its kind in their city? Who wrote grants that funded many enrichment activities for children and adult education programs? What about the person who ran a United Way agency and grew that non-profit into a self sustaining business? Those are just a few of the things I have done and I did not become adept at figuring out how to do them because I have or do not have a 4-year degree.

For companies to define their employees' ability to succeed simply by their paper pedigrees is not sound practice. I believe that should this be your only criteria by which to formulate your opinion of someone, then you are not fairly gauging these potentially valuable candidates.

I find it amazing how different generations feel about this. Young people today (35 and younger) feel you MUST have a degree. Over 35 typically believe that actual experience with the business is more important. Since I am well over 35, I believe that experience trumps a formal education every time. That being said, this is the real issue.

Now that most companies are using headhunters who have been provided a "checklist", and worse, online questionaires to cull through resumes, they are missing out on terrific employees who can't "check the box" on a degree. It's too bad that most companies, especially the largers ones depend on this method of finding employees. So, a 23 year old college graduate who may have been a part time leasing agent for a couple of years is looked upon more favorably than someone with a decade or more of very positive industry experience. That's a shame...

There is one question and that is what did man do before there were colleges and universities to tell them how they should think and go about things? Now there are places for everything. I believe in the engineer that gets their degree in college and learn about weight and load bearing. Learn how to put the data together to build that bridge or building!

Then we come to the people that put it together: the brick and mortar, heavy equipment operators, electricians, carpenters, all coming together to build what is on paper and put it into real life.

In Germany when the kids reach the 9th grade and oh, by the way those kids are just as capable as our 12 graders, they take a test and it is then that those who score a certain level look into the trades and the others go on to be doctors, lawyers, teachers and such.

Speaking specifically of the housing field at the property level, I think it should be done with the hands on approach of the new person being under a seasoned person and maybe even being moved around to other properties to get different approaches.

When you look at one of the best training organizations in the world, at the ground level it is the Noncommissioned Officers (NCO) that are the trainers and the officers that are new coming in and even when they make General always have that senior NCO there to advise.

It is a balance and it is knowing what is needed for the positions and it is a combination of both to be successful and they each bring something to the table!

Incidentally... has anyone here not heard of monster.com?

As luck would have it, my dad is in a small handful of people that were considered experts in Human Resources Advertising (an industry that is now basically a fraction of what it was at the time). He worked for a number of leading advertising agencies, and was asked by a local State University to assist in developing a college internship program for it. There were very few people that knew more about it than he did, and he learned from them.... One of the companies he worked for was J Walter Thompson (the relationship between Monster and JWT is much like the relationship between Chipotle and McDonalds, JWT provided the initial investment for a number of years and then Monster split off when it could stand on it's own). The early development of Monster.com was largely with input from my dad.... WITHOUT A COLLEGE DEGREE!

We sure wish he had a contract that required them to pay him royalties....

OK, let's derail this train momentarily and set aside our own personal feelings about whether or not a degree is needed for, or even an indicator of, future success. There are plenty of examples of both being true.

Let's rephrase the question slightly for THIS industry and ask, if you were to be looking at candidates for a site level manager position; what is the best subject to concentrate on?


Looking at the offerings at Devry's School of Business and Management, what program would serve the industry best? Go to: www.devry.edu/degree-programs/college-bu...iness-management.jsp for details.

Since nobody replied to the last post; I thought I would bump it back up with a related joke. Forgive me, this may not be acceptable to some; and it is not so much a joke as it is a true story about someone I knew long ago.....

He claimed that the only reason he went to college was for what he called the 3 B's.....

Beer
Babes
Baseball (he was pretty good from what I hear; was scouted for the minors, but that ended with an injury)


I do not recall what his major was, but it was in no way closely related to his professional life....

Hey Johnny,

Do not want you to feel like no one is reading. I am reading you and my response would be: wait for it (it depends)! It depends on the qualification the candidate has and it depends on the kind of property they are being looked at for. So, whoever the hiring person is they have to be experienced in the profession and know what is required at the property vs the qualifications/experience the candidate has.

You know no two properties are the same as well as the candidates will come with varied experiences some which may be well suited and others where they just would not be a match.

Hope that helps and know that someone is always looking, but may not respond! So, I have popped up as a target!

Obviously, when I posted this question, I had some people in mind who are well tenured,highly experienced people in the multi-family business. These people have achieved much in the industry, both have held very senior level positions for large companies, and many have even owned their own companies for many years.

After being victims of corporate downsizing, these people find that they cannot get their foot in the door with other companies because they cannot "check the box" of having a degree. These are not "site level" employees, and I don't want to make it seem like people without degrees can never rise above that level. These are awesome folks who would bring very significant value to anyone who would hire them, if they could just talk to a human, and let their abilities shine through.

So, let me re-phrase the question. How do people with excellent resumes, references, and extremely positive 25+ years of experience get in the door of companies like Post, Equity, Drucker and Falk, and a host of others when they can't get past the headhunter with a checklist, or worse, the on-line application which never seems to go anywhere.

One other thing to consider. On site team members can get very frustrated by the "young, college graduate" who is hired into a supervisory position with little or no "boots on the ground" experience. Quite simply, they cannot relate to the job by applying all that book knowledge without understanding the business. When leading a team, it is always more credible to say "When I was on-site and that happened to me, here is what I did". You simply can't get that from a book, or college, and I'll take the "degree" of experience any day.

Vicki,

Sometimes a person just has to go in person and present themselves. Then there are the times when if searching deep enough you can get the targeted person's email and you email the resume to them.

I have many times gone in cold and handed my paperwork over even when there was not an advert for a job. It works as one time there were three offers within one week from different companies.

When I was hiring I personally did not go for the computers and the tests that these companies came up with to determine if a person was going to be a fit or not. I am I know there are others out there that are the same way.

First and for most in the going out there cold is you have to be able to sell yourself. You have to be able to give those compelling reasons why you are better than the others that they will pick, without coming off as cocky, or desperate.

I also say be willing to work under a level and they see your results and you get to the other position.

There is no silver bullet, going in, you have to understand the current culture of the place you want to work and be able to talk to it. Be able to show how you would be a fit in that culture and the value and experience you would bring to the team.

Sometimes with all said and done even though there is not suppose to be age discrimination it is there. So, I have found that as I got older people were more willing to contract me, than hire and when it was all said and done I made more money. So, they may even want to look at contracting out their experience. There are ups and downs to it, for me I can be my own boss or work for an organization. So, they have to be able to work it either way as well. So, want me as an employee or a contracted consultant?

I do somewhat agree with Vicki's last comment and here is why.....

In another life, I was in retail for a number of years (close to 15). One of the locations I worked was for a large retailer that used my location for it's management training program. I was so good at what I did, I was asked to conduct portions of this training for candidates wanting to be managers. In order to qualify as a management trainee candidate, this person had to have a college degree (and the subject matter did not make a difference). The problem is most of my trainees were less intelligent than ice cubes and knew less about the art of customer service than I had forgotten! Of the many trainees I had, I ran into the one glowing success I had and she was a district manager at the time.

I was passed over for the training program (as an existing employee), and was told specifically that it was because I had no college degree and was offered no assistance to change that. Needless to say, I felt a little like a doormat.

It was not long after that conversation that I decided that it was time for me to leave retail for a number of reasons.

Most of the new managers that I train have degrees. Less than half of them have property management experience.

I was a good student and always regretted not finishing college. I married and had children young, so I wouldn't have dared to take time away from my family by getting an education for myself. Now my children are in college and I wouldn't dream of spending money on my own education instead of theirs. Maybe someday.

I haven't let my lack of education hold me back professionally. I dive right in and work my way up. I've done this in three different career fields. A positive attitude and hard working ethics have brought more success than the college degrees of many people I know.

In today's job marketplace, sometimes you have to start at the bottom even if you are more qualified than the person at the top. My husband has years of military training and years of computer experience at a major internet company, yet after being downsized earlier this year, he cannot even find a data entry job for lack of a degree.

At 29, I was named one of the youngest vice presidents in the student housing industry. I was a property manager by 24, regional manager by 26. I am of average intelligence with no college degree. My secret is simple - work hard, understand you are entitled to nothing, and quantify your efforts to show you generate revenue for your company. A degree helps open doors, it doesn't carry you inside.

There was a story on last night's 60 Minutes about this very topic... there is this person that is actually paying people to drop out of traditional education programs. I could not find the episode online; but it will be soon. There was also a great piece about Roger Waters' 'The Wall' tour (I was one of the some 300,000 to see it live in Berlin in 1990, on land that nobody had set foot on for 40 years)....