When Lafavn Davis grew up, she did not dream of becoming an astronaut, a doctor or a teacher … She immediately dreamed of becoming the CEO of seven companies.
This ambition inspired a strong work ethics that led Davis to the labor of 14 when she took the first job in a black flower shop in her hometown San Jose, California. And as soon as she started working, she never stopped.
Despite its strong working ethics, Davis, who landed her work as the main people and director in May 2024, launching HR Brew that her career was not always smooth, partly because she had no bachelor’s degree.
“I was told that since I had no higher degree, there were certain roles that I could not go. I believed that no matter what the job description was if I felt that I could do it, I would still go for it,” Davis Hr Brew said.
But it is not the only HR Pro without a bachelor’s degree. A total of 31% of people in the US reached such an education level, according to the HR Brew/Harris survey conducted in September. About 12% have an associat degree, while 30% have a high school diploma, and 8% less. Meanwhile, 18% have a postgraduate degree.
Davis shared with HR Brew as she rose across a corporate ladder without a four -year college.
Traveling in a career. After graduating from high school, Davis entered the University of San Khase. But she said she was in class to go to work and decided to refuse and join corporate America. She worked in operational roles in dotcom startups, but when this bubble in 2000 burst, she lost her job. And without a bachelor’s degree, Davis said she had been dismissed from new opportunities.
So, at the age of 22, with the newborn to take care, she made a difficult decision to move home with her parents. But she was still determined to return to the corporate labor and commit a childhood dream to become an executive power.
During these years, after the Dotcom, Davis said she had bending over her network of corporate contacts, which helped her find a job as a correspondent, executive assistant and chief of staff. Each role taught her a new administrator or skills of people. Then, in 2005, she got a big break – it was hired as a specialist in the program GoogleWhere it will work for eight years, having finished its stay as a business partner in variety and inclusion.
“I really focus (Ed) on many programs and initiatives on the frames, and about how diversity, justice, inclusion can be woven throughout the process of the employee’s life cycle,” she said. “I really liked it, and I thought I found my career way, unlike work. I felt like I was actually starting a career.”
After Google Davis said Fuckand PayPal. In 2019, almost 15 years in her staffing career, she landed as vice -drug variety, inclusion and affiliation.
Skills first-is the future.Davis said she was lucky that she had so many opportunities to break into corporate America without a bachelor’s degree, and wishes to be more common based on skills.
“The first movement for skills is not at all a degree against college … This is more that a college degree is not the only way to gain skills, and helping both people and companies to understand what it means to hire skills,” she said.
Davis said she had been “ashamed” before, that she had no four -year college. Nowadays, she likes to share her story and uses it to report her work in indeed, where she seeks to facilitate the application process, encouraging the company to accept the first approach.
“One of the things I said when I came in is” we need to drink our own champagne … Whatever we asked for other companies, we must do it ourselves, “she said, adding that she really gave up the college’s demands from her corporate publications in 2022 and calls himself a fair employer.
“I will not simultaneously make the CEO of seven companies in a row,” she said, but “became part of the C-Suite, knowing that while traveling, that I do not have the highest degree, it became a great space of inspiration so that others know what they can do the same.”
This report was written by Mikaela Cohen and was Originally published by Hr Brew.
Originally this story was presented on Fortune.com
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2025-03-21 00:40:00
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