Do I need a Degree?

It feels like I’ve been unemployed for so long that I’ve moved to a new stage: overthinking the negative possibilities.?

I’ve always been an all-star in my field and now I’m starting to feel tainted. This new stage forced me to evaluate myself beyond the years of experience I have and to look at what I’m missing when I apply for jobs.

A college degree.

If you say “no” on an application, you’re automatically thrown out of the running, but if you say “yes” and you don’t have one, you’re a liar. What if you answer “yes” because you equate years of experience as being more valuable than the time spent in college?

My career goal in 1989 (9th grade) was to become a high school history teacher and one day become a college history professor, and a novelist.

Anyways, smoking a lot of weed, living in and around towns with rivers, spring-fed pools, lots of sunshine, and an intense phobia of math kept me from getting that history/secondary education degree and one day in the early 2000’s I found myself in the natural foods world. And loving it.?

Typical life circumstances brought me to a job at a Whole Foods in Dallas where I flourished because of the sass I brought to the front end. I worked my way up to a sweet position at the store that beautifully rolled into a job at the global offices here in Austin, which proved that degrees weren’t everything and misfit toys could truly blossom and make a name for themselves in the right setting! Sadly, great things often end and a company-wide layoff thwarted my sweet gig. Damn, dude. Laid off from a job that I LOVED - like wholeheartedly-never-knew-I-could-love-a-job-or-a-company-like-that-LOVE - poof. Over. Fuck. I sat in the dark and cried.?

The Food Hole (as I like to call it) paid for job coaching and new resumes for every one laid off, but I wasn’t hearing it. I ignored the calls and emails from the Job Coach because I was super butt-hurt. Like dramatically butt-hurt. Finally, I took a call from one of their VPs as the Food Hole spent a lot of $$ per person and wanted me to get the most out of it. The VP asked me what I wanted out of my next role. I said: “ Not to pee in a cup. I’m not taking a drug test. I’ve been at a company where my real life was my business for many years and that’s something I’m unwilling to give up.” My now ex-husband was washing the dishes and says, “did you really just say that?” The VP just laughed and said, “a company that really wants to hire you won’t allow a drug test to keep you from being employed.” What!? My mind was blown. How could this be? Ok, well, “I don’t have a degree.” At this point, I was just throwing out all the reasons I wasn't good enough to move forward professionally because I was still so butt-hurt from being laid off.?

VP Job Coach got where I was coming from and we jumped right into working on my elevator pitch and interview questions while the company created a ridiculously good resume. My job-getting game was so polished that I received 6 DIFFERENT job offers in one week. I turned down all 6 offers because they weren’t the right “fit”. People I knew in recruiting were like, “what are you doing?!” It was 2008, there was a recession and that means you don’t turn down a viable job offer.

I held out for THE job I really wanted with a local sweet tea company. I was hired as the Receptionist/Customer Service Manager for Sweet Leaf Tea. I was over-qualified and wayyyyyyy too sassy to be anyone’s receptionist and perfectly qualified for the customer service role as I held a similar role at Whole Foods. My career game-changer was that they also wanted someone to “take care of MySpace and Twitter because nobody wants to deal with it.”?

I started by answering all of the customer service inquiries along with donation/sponsorship requests from bands and famous people on MySpace (remember, it was 2008) and then moved to Twitter where after searching the brand name, BOOM! I discovered that people were talking about us! I connected with “bloggers” and fans of the brand by sending free products with hand-written notes and cool swag. Eventually getting company mentions in blogs, and press opportunities, and had a case study written in a book about how I pioneered utilizing social media as a customer service tool. Y’all, people are still mystified by this TODAY AND YES YOU SHOULD BE USING SOCIAL MEDIA AS A CUSTOMER SERVICE TOOL FOR YOUR BRAND.?

After another layoff in the Spring of 2011, I moved on to work for other local brands, including a company that was acquired by one of the Big 4 auditing firms doing Social Listening - without a degree. One night at a company gathering with the new Partner, it was my turn to make small talk with him, when he asked, “Where did you go to school, April?” Oh man, here it is, THE question. “I attended Collin County Community College and Austin Community College and made it this far on humor, intelligence, and charisma.” The dude was not amused and said, “May I suggest never telling the truth about your lack of degree to anyone else in the company?” I was so offended that I said, “I don’t lie and I’m proud of my professional accomplishments. My planned history/secondary education degree doesn’t really have much to do with social media marketing and social listening.”?

This brings me to now as I’ve had many fantastic social media jobs since the Social Listening gig in 2012, and the farther I travel down the professional road, the less I think it matters if I have a degree. Why do you care what I learned in college between 1993-1997? If we’re going to be really honest, you probably weren’t born yet. I’m answering these silly questions on your outdated and antiquated job application for a role I expect to be paid a solid salary for and you’re wasting time asking about my HS and college GPA.

Yo, my 30-year high school reunion is this fall, and I want to set the record straight right here, right now: what you see on LinkedIn and my newly updated-by-another-Job-Coach resume is what your hiring decisions should be based on. And yes, I was laid off again this past fall and am looking for THE perfect position. Reach out if you’re interested in learning more about my background and how I might help your badass organization be even more badass in the ever-changing world of social media and community management.

*We'll cover the topic of 'Job Searches for the Over 40' at a later date.