At apple it is not, so to speak. I have an aquaintence who worked there for 5 years and was doing well. Unfortunately, when he applied for a higher level position he was flagged by HR for not having a degree, even though he was otherwise qualified for the position - that’s how I know him, we are both older students at the same school.
The mailroom to boardroom stereotype is probably more common in countries with a lot of immigrants and immigrant families. After a generation or three those immigrant families who can make it have probably already done so; whereas first and 2nd generations are still jumping at the bit.
Didn’t Andrew Carnegie go from mailroom(of sorts) to boardroom?
At one point the CEO of my company was a woman who was said to have begun as an administrative assistant. (I know another woman who began in the company as an AA temp and is now doing quite well in sales & marketing, but not anywhere near being CEO.)
I believe former British PM John Major never got a college degree and began with various clerical-type jobs in banking and insurance.
OTOH, I’ve read that Michael Eisner refused to promote Jeffrey Katzenberg at Disney (which led to his resignation and the formation of Dreamworks) because he did not have a degree in filmmaking. (This may have been an official excuse to cover personal objections, however.)
The number of people who can be corporate executives in major companies is pretty small, period. Getting to that spot without the advantages in education, networking, and safety net that being born into wealth and privilege provide is obviously harder, but it’s not surprising that it’s hard to achieve a C-level position without an MBA. They do actually teach you important things in business school.
Due respect to your acquaintance, the fact that he failed to do so doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to do so. And no one disputes the claim that it’s very hard to do so. At every level of advancement, there are fewer and fewer positions. So even in a perfect meritocracy (which I’m not claiming most companies are), you should expect most people to fail to advance at some point. I think in many cases “otherwise qualified for the position” is not going to get you there if you’re missing some qualification that others have. “Exceptionally successful at all previous pursuits” might, though. And that’s what it takes to work your way up from the bottom.
As an example of a corporate meritocracy, McDonalds has done pretty well. Michael Quinlan, who was CEO from 1987 to 1998, literally started work there in the mailroom. Charlie Bell, who was briefly CEO in 2004, started working at a McDonalds at 15, flipping burgers. Jim Skinner, who was CEO from 2004-2012, started as a restaurant manager trainee.
This. Most high-ranking execs who claim to have started in the mail room and worked their way up are full of shit.
It used to be (back in the old days) that management training programs typically started off new employees in the mailroom. In those pre-computer days, it was considered a good way to get to know people, and to understand the flow of information through the organization.
Those guys, later in their lives, when they were CEOs or executive vice presidents or whatever, liked to spin the story so it sounded like a Horatio Alger success story. But it was a crock.
Years ago (50s, 60s) the big white-shoe law firms used to make new litigation associates work in the managing clerk’s office for a while. Didn’t mean they worked their way up from clerk to lawyer. And lawyers wouldn’t try to spin it that way. But apparently CEOs have less shame.
I started in the mailroom in a Fortune 50 company as a temp worker, worked my way into direct hire in the same position (benefits, woohoo!), then worked up to lead of the mailroom staff. At this point, the company outsourced the mailroom dept to a vendor and we had to interview with the new vendor for our current jobs, but at reduced pay and benefits. 5 of the 6 of us took the voluntary layoff instead, and had a hell of a party at the bar in the lobby.
It’s the American dream in action.
I have a friend who started as a 16-year-old at Wal Mart and now 20 years later he’s some sort of manager trainer.
My mom started as a part-time lunchlady at the local schools and worked her way up to the secretary for the assistant superintendent.
Neither of these people went to college, but both of these people made their ways to the top during the Clinton administration. (Ok not the top, but pretty great jobs compared to where they started)
Right. Or one college year their Uncle, who was on the Board of Directors, got them a summer job in the mailroom, conveniently scheduled around their trip to Europe that year. (Possibly with actual work required, or possibly not).
Do you have intimate knowledge of the HR practices regarding advancement of retail personnel to corporate postions at Apple Corporation? Please share.
Are you aware of any actual CEOs who have made this bogus claim in such circumstances, or is this just your opinion of what CEOs would probably do?
If someone completes a degree while working, I think it’s still quite possible to work their way up the ladder. However, most companies are definitely at a point where you can only get so far without a degree, regardless of work history.
As an example, I have a relative who started in a relatively lowly sales position and worked her way up to a supervisory position in sales. That was the highest she could go without a degree, but she took night/online classes and thereafter was promoted up to a VP level position (maybe the 5th highest ranked person at that location of about 200). Then the corporate HQ decided to close a few locations and it all went away.
On the other hand, I had a friend who spent 15 years in the mailroom of a different company. He had lofty ideas of climbing the ladder, but was entirely unmotivated to go to school. Eventually, he was replaced… by an MBA-candidate intern who will certainly rise into management if he stays with that company.
I think examples like my grandfather are unlikely in today’s business world.
He literally started out as a teller before WWII at one of the two biggest banks in Galveston, and by the time he retired in about 1984-85, he’d made it to Senior Vice President & Chief Loan Officer of the bank. Shortly before he retired at 65, the bank was bought by Interfirst, and subsequently by Bank of America at some point after he’d passed away.
I kind of doubt someone could pull that off in today’s banking world; partially due to structural reasons (commercial loans aren’t done within individual branches), and because back in the day, it was a different era, where experience, local knowledge, personal relationships and integrity were just as or more important as educational credentials and high grades.
Nope. Do you think that my general claims are thus invalid? If so, no need to be coy.
George Bodenheimer, former president of ESPN and top executive at Disney started out at the mailroom.
John Borghetti, CEO of Virgin Australia and former top executive at Quantas started out at the mailroom.
A member of my family started out as a repair technician and is now an executive at a very large Computer company.
BTW the Gilbert and Sullivan song was written to mock a politician for becoming head of the Royal Navy without having served on a ship.
The G&S song is mentioned in the OP. As for George Bordenheimer, let’s look at his biography. He graduated from Denison University in 1980 with a BA in economics. In January 1981, he joined ESPN in the “administration department,” which may mean the mailroom. But he didn’t stay there very long. Within a year or so, he was a marketing rep in Dallas, and was promoted every couple of years (moving around the country) until he was EVP, Sales & Marketing in New York. A couple of years after that, he was president of ESPN in the US. So he demonstrated ambition, drive and the willingness to accept promotions even if they required him to uproot his family. (I’m guessing that his sales numbers were good as well.)
It really depends on the field. Human resources, creative fields and service industries, maybe. Sciences/medicine? Not a chance. I’m nearly unemployable as a Registered Nurse without a Bachelors of Science in Nursing. There’s no way I can get into Nursing Administration or Education with only an AAS, even though I have the same exact nursing license as someone with a BSN.
My dad started out, not quite in the mailroom, but as a junior junior assistant of some sort. He retired years later from the same company (sort of, a division, I believe it was, of the original company name on his first paycheck) as a Senior Research Fellow (that was his job title, although wikipedia says research fellows are academics, which he was not. He was a research scientist.) He was the highest ranking guy in the room who actually knew what was going on. He managed a staff and his name was on the door of the building. He designed products, materials and the machines to produce them, then designed the lines and ran testing on the prototypes to get them scalable for full production. He’s got hundreds of patents in his field, and his work is mentioned in several textbooks in the textile and fashion industries.
He has a BS in Math. That’s it. No Engineering degree, not even a Masters in a related field.
But he’s the first to tell you* that it couldn’t be done today. His “lowly” BS wouldn’t get him an interview with himself by the time he was in a management position.
*Although at the same time, he’s insistent that anyone could be successful just like him if they really tried, and all those whiners making minimum age are just lazy losers. The man cannot comprehend modern student debt or the level of education required to be successful in what he considers “real” careers.
Gail Kelly, about-to-retire CEO of a major Australian bank, started as a teller. She already had a BA at that point, and got an MBA later as well.
Specifically, William Henry Smith, a former bookseller who, at the time Pinafore was written, was First Lord of the Admiralty, in spite of never having sailed and knowing nothing about ships.
Isn’t the First Lord of the Admiralty the equivalent of the US Secretary of the Navy? Because in the US, there is no requirement that the Secretary of the Navy have any naval experience, even if most of them were navy veterans.
Yes, I think they are. He specifically worked for Apple and was denied for promotion through a HR red flag for not having a college degree. The situation is such that you are not going to start out at Apple and then through hard work, dedication, good reviews etc. move up the corporate ladder of that company very far.
There were indeed people pulling for him, but the HR person has no real incentive to take the risk of doing something like hiring someone who does not have a degree if that is one of the boxes that needs to be checked.
Of course, he could go back and reapply after he graduates, but that is not exactly “working his way up from the mailroom” in the way that phrase is generally meant to be taken.
I’ve seen it work differently in different places - I know someone who was promoted over someone with an MBA who had no degree at all - but this was a sales environment. So, I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, it just depends on the policies of the place of employment.