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Well, Sunspace, I know you have taken a few technical writing courses at an accredited college and that you’ve been doing technical writing for some years, so your lack of a BA wouldn’t worry me too much. But then, I also know enough about you personally, and of your technical writing background.
If I did not know you and you came to my technical writing department with a DeVry diploma of some sort, I’d want to see some writing samples. Preferably technical ones, of course, though I wouldn’t necessarily ignore other kinds as an indicator of your writing ability. If you had no technical samples at all, I’d ask you to create at least one on your own: write an instruction guide for some piece of technology that you are familiar with. (For example, I used to suggest to candidates that they write instructions for setting up their VCRs to record something when they were not home.) And I’d look for a number of things in the document you prepared for me; not just the ability to write step-by-step instructions.
This is not to say that a BA would automatically raise your abilities in my eyes. If your BA was in, say, History; I’d probably want to get some idea of your writing ability, and of your abilities in understanding technology and communicating it simply and clearly.
I guess my point is that there can be a lot more to a candidate than a degree or diploma. There can also be a lot more to a job than a degree or diploma requirement. This is especially true for fields like technical writing, which had no courses or programs twenty-plus years ago (when I got into the field), but which now have so many university and college courses, programs, degrees, and diplomas that getting a tech writing job without one is well-nigh impossible.
My knowledge of DeVry is about 20 years old, but back then among the ‘technology’ programs DeVry was considered one of the best. This isn’t online, mind you, but an actual bricks-and-mortar DeVry Institute, competing with local junior colleges and trade schools. And DeVry had the best job placement rate of any of the 2-year tech programs around.
Things may have completely changed since, but back then DeVry was quite good.
I’m fairly sure that most “regular” universities advertise on television these days. I know for a fact that in my area of the world, “The Ohio State University” ads are aired quite often.
During sporting events, the competing schools will normally run ads for thier institutions as well.
Unfortunately I have to agree with twickster. Why should I hire someone from DeVry when I can hire someone from Rutgers? And people from Rutgers haven’t impressed me.
Geez, that’s too bad. Hope you get over it.
People from DeVry generally aren’t competing against Rutgers. They’re competing against the people who graduated from Podunk Jr. College.
I didn’t mean it was unfortunate for us.
Not necessarily. I occassionally come across DeVry resumes because our work is technical in nature.
Well, I guess that’s part of what I’m asking. Are you going to skip over / forget the experience part of the résumé & make your decision based solely on where a degree was earned? Is 10 years experience pretty much all alike & you don’t even read the rest?
Does DeVry or Kaplan (or what have you) buy an immediate trip into the ciruclar file under the desk?
(FWIW I want to get a real EE degree from a real school, but between work & 4 young kids, I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate. Heck, the kids are only young once.)
Then I’d explore doing that in some version of online and IRL, depending on what’s available to you – and explain what you’re doing in your cover letter: “I take my career seriously and want to continue to learn and expand my expertise; toward that end, I’m currently studying at Legit U, in addition to working FT and meeting my family obligations.” Between having a BS degree and working on a real one, I’d go for working on a real one.
Again, though, see above: I am a snob.
Of course, I’m not the only snob out there reading resumes.
If anything, not enough snobs are reading resumés. Every so often you find out someone was hired for some position requiring academic credentials, who did not even actually graduate from DeVry/Kaplan/etc. but had a degree from a phony school, or a phony degree attributed to a real school, that minimal due dilligence would have detected. In the marketplace out there, it too often seems like HR departments divide academia only into “Top Tier” and “Everything Else”.
In the world of online/offsite degrees, the top line standard on the academic side is of RA - “Regional Accredited” (SACS, MSACS, etc.); these in turn would have two major categories: brick-and-mortars that provide partly online/offsite versions of their programs; or all-offsite programs such as are provided by Excelsior College, COSC and TESC, that combine the work you do at other accredited institutions plus their own distance-ed courses plus credit by examination (e.g. DANTES) (These are very convenient for military personnel, who may be able to enroll at local colleges but not to remain in a single place long enough to comply with having the majority of credits happen in one school). For the technical schools that have not evolved into academic colleges, there’s DETC-accreditation, which is a sort of “poor stepcousin” to RA.
That said, if I’m hiring and the DeVry graduate brings me what I am looking for, I will give him a fair shake. But he should be aware he will be at a starting-gate disadvantage vs. someone from, say, UPR.
Regional acreditation for the institution is the bottom line, whether it’s an on-campus or distance learning program.
Let me DP and elaborate: There are plenty of schools (sic) willing to offer you a degree based on at best low-quality, online work, and at worst, for your reported life experience. These programs represent themselves as accredited, but when you look for information about their accrediting body, it’s clear that it’s just another arm of the same entity. I recall reading that some of these online programs were implicated in money laundering or some other terrorist-related activity in the lkast few years. I received an e-mail offering me degrees from an “accredited” school. I filled out the form, requesting a doctorate in psychology on the basis of a claimed AA in medical transcription, babysitting as a teenager, and the fact that “my coworkers at McDonalds all say I’m a real good listener and they like to get advice from me.” A few hours later, the school was pleased to offer me a doctorate, once I paid my fee, of course.
I’m not suggesting that DeVry etc. fall into this category. I am saying that regional accreditation is an accepted standard of quality control, and that earning a degree from an accredited program appears legitimate, whereas an unaccredited program could easily grant you a degree based on lies, and is not a credible qualification. Also, if your work requires a state license or certificate, education at an unaccredited school may not be accepted.
Is it 10 years experience or 1 year of experience repeated for the past ten years? The difference is that after 10 years experience, I expect someone to be at a level where they can manage clients and teams of people. Someone with 10 x1 year experience, basically just a technician or a worker bee.
I work in a consulting firm so quite often we have to be able to sell our consultant’s resume to clients. DeVry’s not such a hot sell.
The other thing is, and this might sound snobbish, but I tend to prefer more well rounded, polished and sophisticated candidates you find in the better schools. They tend to be better socialized and the clients like them more.
We have people with extensive work experience but a lower tier education. Their style can be abrasive, their management clumsy and their appearence less professional. They often view lawyers and bankers and executives as pretentious and superior which is a problem because those our our clients who we are advising they need to deal with them confidently as peers.
It’s a common problem with consulting firms that you need people who are technically skilled who also have business and interpersonal skills. It’s very difficult to find the whole package.
And finally, I need people who are career focused. People who can come in at the entry level and over time, will naturally take on leadership responsibilities. DeVry doesn’t scream “career oriented” to me.
Is a DeVry resume automatically chucked? I’d have to ask HR about that. But we have employees from some of the better schools in the NY area so I can tell you those resumes are at a disadvantage if they are considered at all.