RE: Resume: Educational relevance in light of actual experience?

[Fred Sampson <fred -at- fredsampson -dot- com>]

I've long maintained (and told my son) that after you've been working a few 
years, your education (degree, major, institution) become nearly 
irrelevant. Apparently not everyone agrees with me.

My resume omits dates for those items that would tend to suggest I'm "old," 
but includes dates for more recent, relevant, jobs and education. So my 
college graduation dates are missing. And no one seems to care.

However, when I changed careers from small business management to tech 
writing a few years back, I enrolled in a technical writing certificate 
program from the local university extension. I was also working as a tech 
writer at the same time. The date I earned that certificate is on my 
resume, you bet--it shows recent education in current tools and 
technologies. I don't, however, mention that I got an A in every single 
course! If anyone asks--and they have--I'll tell them.

Incidentally, when I was finishing the certificate program, I worked as a 
contractor at a company that also hired (full-time) another graduate of the 
same program. Everyone assumed that she was more experienced than I, since 
she finished the program first! They finally learned that I had twenty 
years' computer experience, to her zero, but not before I found a position 
at another company that valued my experience and education.


Fred Sampson
Technical Writer
fred -at- fredsampson -dot- com
831-728-1339


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