PROVING YOU'RE QUALIFIED:
Strategies for Competent People without College Degrees.

Introduction

There are many dull-witted people working in fields and factories, but there are also many dull-witted people practicing medicine, teaching school, managing corporat8ons, and working as sociologists.  The assumption that a man and his labor are of the same intellectual or cultural level is founded in the arrogance of the observer.

--Earl Shorris

Each day thousands of experienced, competent people in America are denied job opportunities and well-deserved promotions because of a lack of formal credentials.  Often the credential requirements are arbitrary, having nothing whatsoever to do with the job in question.  The result is that organizations lose added value and the individuals involved lose money, prestige, and fulfillment.  Nothing in the workplace is more frustrating than being asked to fill a job temporarily until someone more “qualified” can be found to fill it permanently.  Inevitably, once the “qualified” candidate is found the fill-0in will be asked to provide the necessary training and orientation. This kind of scenario is one of many that give rise to a morale problem permeating the whole structure of the American work force.

The general sense of fairness that should prevail is undermined by a tacit belief that one’s effort will not be rewarded in proportion to the effort expended.  This problem derives from our reliance on a procedure for judging competence and merit that is fundamentally flawed and inherently inefficient – a system that can be as destructive to those who appear to benefit as it is as to those who are prevented from advancement.  For decades we have hired and promoted people based on what we assumed was merit, and yet we have remained indifferent to the reality of how merit plays out in actual practice.

Credentials are an attempt to offer proof that we can do what we say we can do.  I say attempt because anyone with experience in the workplace can attest to the fact that credentials cannot be counted on a proof of competence.  Establishing credentials should be no more complicated that proving competence. But proof of competence should consist of more than evidence of school attendance, effective use of short-term memory, and an ability to adapt to a classroom environment.

In the course of promoting my previous book, Self-University, I have been asked more questions about the subjects of qualification and promotion that any other aspect of self-education. The idea to write this book occurred to me while doing radio shows to promote Self-University. Every time I spoke about the problems of credentialing the telephone switchboards lit up. The callers’ anger and extreme frustration were immediately apparent.  Since then, I have continued to study the problems associated with credentials and promotions, observing the hiring and promotion process from close up and at a distance.  Reflection on my experiences as employee and as a supervisor has provided insight into problems that are seldom discussed or written about.

I have more than 30 years of work experience in varying types of employment settings. I’ve been a U.S. Marine, a police officer, a factory worker, a salesman, and a publisher, and I have spent more than a decade and a half working for a major oil company ll of my experience I have never been able to discern definitive differences traceable to levels of formal education among people performing similar jobs. I have worked with and for people with impressive degrees who were, without question, incompetent. I have worked with and for people with little formal education who were exemplary employees whom you would never suspect lacked any knowledge with having. On numerous occasions I have seen people with no experience perform tasks better on the first attempt than people who had been performing the same task for years and had spent considerable time studying their field.

I have witnessed hundreds of conflicts over which employees should be promoted and which credentials should be required for a given job.  I am convinced that our system of qualification does as much harm as it does good. Competence should be more important than credentials, and knowledge, no matter how it is obtained, should count more that proof of attendance in what are often ridiculous qualifying exercises. For the sake of businesses, individuals, and learning institutions, evidence of competence should be possible through the demonstration of a person’s effort, not limited to what it is “thought” the person knows.

The ability to shoot straight can be quickly demonstrated, whereas a certificate that says you can shoot straight may be counterfeit. Why, then, does it make sense to accept certificates instead of target practice when choosing shooters?  Why are people known to be expert marksmen asked to step aside to made way for people who have shooting certificates but are unable to hit the broad side of a barn?  Thank goodness we do not do this with airline pilots.  Airline pilots have to prove they know what they are doing under the direct scrutiny of others who have already proved their own competence: would that such demonstrated ability carried more weight in other areas. Take instruction, for example.  I have watched enthusiastic individuals with no formal credentials conduct training sessions and hold audiences spellbound. Their high interest, coupled with hands-on experience, engenders a genuine enthusiasm for learning among the trainees.  In contrast, I have observed people with graduate degrees in teaching whose training exercises were so dull a as to quash anyone’s curiosity about the subject matter.

My interest in the mechanics of merit and promotion over the years has spawned some ideas about work that many people will find politically incorrect. For one, if a job is worth doing, it is worth a living wage. When I was 21 years old, I would have simply brushed aside the problem of impoverishingly low wages as a question of economics and achievement. But, at 50+, have learned that economics is only a euphemism for politics. So, to a large degree (pun intended), is the whole process we call “qualification.”

It has been my observation that few Americans respect what they do not understand. Thus, it makes a lot of sense to air these issues thoroughly. I must warn you however, that understanding credentialism may increase your level of anxiety, even if you are able to rise above it. Clearly, seeing the absurdity in a system which most people take as self-evident can be very upsetting. The positive side of adding a bit of reality and objectivity to your perspective is that sometimes you can win skirmishes in the battle.  At the very least, it’s worth a great deal to realize that you haven’t been crazy all these years. Much of the groundwork necessary to successfully challenge arbitrary credentialing policies can be found in thoroughly understanding the senselessness of them. Once you can see that the emperor has no clothes, the methodology of how to prove this to others becomes clearer. The situation is easier to combat when you understand it better than anyone else, even if you have to defy what is accepted as common sense and conventional wisdom.

This book is idealistic in nature. I do not for a minute pretend otherwise, nor do I wish to whitewash my cynicism away completely—you may need some of it to temper your apprehension. My idealism springs from the simple but profound premise that the genuine value of human beings is neither dependent upon, nor it is discernable by, the positions they hold within economic hierarchies.

Throughout these pages you’ll encounter arguments which seem to contradict each other. For example, on the one hand, I may suggest that if you have legitimate suitable experience, then educational credentials are not necessary. But, at the same time, I’ll explain to you haw to go about getting those credentials. I may suggest that formal education has little to do wit h workplace reality, but in the next sentence I will imply that is a direct connection. You’ll think I’m talking out of bother sides of my mouth, yet I know of no other way to be true to the title of   Proving You’re Qualified than to press both of these realities to the best of my ability. The process involves acknowledging both the reality of what is and what ought to be.

We are living in fast times. Politicians propose to reinvent government, and corporate leaders talk of reinventing business. It seems to me it would be even more meaningful and efficacious to reinvent the process we call qualification. A complete reexamination of that dynamic would eventually lead to better government through a greater democratization of opportunity. But, before we pursue such a trajectory toward the future, we must have a clearer examination of the present.

The first of the chapters that follow lays out our dilemma in three parts: common misguided expectations about merit and achievement, the stranglehold on knowledge which has resulted from such expectations, and a straightforward remedy designed to fulfill the original purpose of achieving merit. Chapter Two offers insight into just how formidable our hieraarchical system has become and how the forces of technology and global economics are beginning to erode its foundation. The third chapter presents a critical discussion of management, the dynamics of promotional policies, and the amount of effort required to influence these practices. Chapter Four examines the nature of credentialing methods, an Chapter Five takes a closer look at the questions surrounding who is really qualified to do what. A list of choices and options to further develop your own approaches follows in the sixth chapter. Chapter Seven surveys the nature of change in the information age and revisits the subjects of organizations and management in the context. Chapter Eight pulls together the lessons of the first seven chapters an, unde the rubric of Me, Inc., provides a structure for proving you are qualified.  What becomes clear throughout is that effecting real change in the existing system involves upending long-held, emotion-laden beliefs.  This can only take place from the bottom up, and it’s our responsibility to make sure the need is no ignored.

This is not a book for rocket scientists and neurosurgeons, although a great many of them might do well to read it.  This book is for the thousand s of competent people in America who learned their jobs while doing them (certainly man scientists and surgeons qualify), but whose direct experience is valued less than the power of distant institutions.  This book is intended to help you answer the question: “Should I go back to school?”  Or, for those who are fresh out of school, this book may put into perspective what otherwise might take decades to learn.  Most of all, this book is for those who have paid their dues through competent performance, but who are having difficulty proving it in the face of age-old, errant assumptions abut the nature of qualifications.  It will help you determine how to prove you are qualified if you are, and will help you become qualified if you still have some steps to take. I have attempted to go much further than to simply offer advice about how to better prove your competence.  Developing and implementing strategies requires a constant awareness of context, so I have tried to make sense of the chaotic times in which we live and work. If we can do this, if we cannot provide context, no amount of strategy development will help.

My intent is that this book will change forever the way you view the qualification process and that an enlightened perspective will keep you a step ahead of the game while helping to change the rules. I know how much anger and frustration credentialing problems can generate. My purpose in writing this book is to help you turn your anger into positive action. I recommend that you read this book over several times, pass it on to others and find the points upon which you agree and disagree. I further invite you to write us with your experience, your success stories, and your philosophical agreements and disagreements, both for our newsletter and as material for a companion volume to this book.  Ongoing discussion and shared insight are vital to effecting change.