>> Experience is king in the IG profession, mostly because you have to wear so many hats.  You need to be able to speak and understand IT, you need to be able to understand enterprise architecture at a high level, understand InfoSec, you need to be able to speak and understand legal, you must understand business processes, change management, and so many other aspects on top of the fiduciary duties as the organizational expert on information collection, classification, preservation, and  disposition.  This is where the disconnect lives, as those are not skills that you typically acquire as part of any one degree program.<<

I believe Josh is correct, experience is king.  Personally, I believe experience is as important as education.  My RM  career opportunities over the past 35 years have all been the direct result of my prior work experience, not my education.  I finished my BS when I was 40.  Before that, my Higher Ed experience had been a quarter in forestry management and a couple of semesters of horticulture.

My work experience was my education.  I spent the first 10 years of my work life trying never to do the same job twice.  As a result, I worked in the timber, accounting, mining, construction, retail, manufacturing, oil field, sales, and tourism industries. The practical experience relevant to my RM career was in two primary areas, communication and information management.

The communication skills I am talking about are not ability to speak or write well.  They are the ability to talk to engineers, attorneys, accountants, laborers, clerks, IT types, vendors, developers, DBA's, and executive management in their language.  This ability enables me to gain their trust in my ability to understand the challenges they face.  It also enables me to clearly define opportunities using real life examples that they can relate to and understand.  

The information management skills I learned were practical experience on the use of information by the various business units within an organization.  As a result, I am able to discuss their information and its use and ask the questions needed to understand the use that enable implementation new ways of thinking.  Once you have gained the trust and partnership of the business units, you then need the knowledge Josh identifies to affect major change within an organization.  

Please do not think I am writing off education, far from it. Education is very important.  I would like to go back today. But education by itself is not enough to be successful in a senior position.  There are things that only experience can teach.

Bill

Bill Roach, CRM
Manager, Corporate Records
______________________
MoneyGram International

Opinions are my own and not those of my employer or any other individual or entity.

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