The focus on education has sometimes been so intense that now I no longer juts matters whether you have a 4-year degree or not, but where you got it from. It is often believed that attendees of Ivy League universities and those enjoying a strong national or global reputation have a leg up when it comes to negotiation on remuneration. Until the spectacular collapse of the financial industry between 2007 and 2009 that seemed to tone things down, the dizzying pay of persons joining such niche fields as corporate finance and investment banking had not helped ease matters.
So where does this leave people who do not have a 4-year degree let alone one from an Ivy League institution? There is good news for persons that have not had the opportunity to obtain a 4-year degree; that is, there are manager jobs that one can still get into that provide good pay. Actually, manager careers in this niche have somehow benefited from the focus on jobs that require 4-year degree as this has diverted attention of most job seekers from this area leaving it significantly unutilized. This apparent neglect has sometimes been attributed to poor jobs management by human resource departments and career advisory teams as having not provided appropriate direction to job seekers on the opportunities lurking herein.
Of course, it must be said that compensation in manager jobs in these fields depends on the level of training (even though one does not have a 4-year degree), the amount of experience and the specific industry the job relates to. Each of these is an area one can work on and raise their advantage for the specific type of job one is interested in. For example, when it comes to education, there are different approaches you can take. Either you could go for a 2-year associate program. Even then, this is sometimes beyond the financial reach of people looking at making it into the manager careers' arena.
For this reason, the government, through state-run or state-sponsored programs, has provided free or heavily subsidized education for persons that cannot otherwise afford to pay for themselves. A good example is the less-talked-about federal program known as Job Corps. What is interesting is that relatively few people in the United States seem to have heard of the opportunities Job Corps present. They have an age restriction though and normally focus on persons between the ages of 18 and 24 years. There are successful stories from Job Corps with students that have gone through the program being able to compete and hold among the better-paying manager jobs in the country.
Looking at examples of jobs that may not necessarily require a 4-year education program, one of the most prominent are technical IT jobs such as network administrators, system administrators and technology help desk administrators. Others include Court reporters, Clinical laboratory technologists, and solar systems energy installer. When applying for these jobs, it is important that you bring out your strengths in your resume and make sure that the cover letter that accompanies the application provides the reason the institution you are applying for should consider you as a key candidate for manager careers in the organization.
