This is depressing, but I've personally worked with at least two VP level (200K+ salary roles, heavy hitters) individuals with diploma mill degrees. Noticed one

This is depressing, but I've personally worked with at least two VP level (200K+ salary roles, heavy hitters) individuals with diploma mill degrees. Noticed one on linkedin after he was dismissed for other reasons - the college sounded unfamilar, did a quick search on google and... Well, Well, What do we have here... The other cute little "education" scam I've seen is the Ivy League executive education courses - you will see some senior line managers out there claiming post-undergrad experience at Harvard, Wharton, and U Chicago. These are frequently 1 - 3 week "exec ed" programs which they then spin as "mini-MBA" or (ratcheting up the deception level) either business degrees/programs or an "executive MBA". The resume process is inherantly broken - many resumes are outright lies, many are poorly written, the balance of the candidates are often interchangable within certain broad sets of skills. Look at the flow of talent within existing leadership teams at major companies - IT PM's <-> IT Ops, Developers frequently learn new platforms, many folks moving between technology and near-business roles (such as process improvement and process management roles)... The external recruiting process is sufficiently broken that we can't do this with external candidates. We're in the fall back world - most senior level hiring at my current employer (large company) occurs through either: - Personal Relationships (referral from a "made man") - "Feeder Companies" (a big 5 consulting firm) Suspect you can't use the fake referral unless you're either very junior (lots of institutional scruity but very little personal checking by the hiring manager) or trying to get into a space where they are sufficiently desparate for talent that they don't have time/interest for a deep check..