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)....

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.