March is here, and as I write this the first weekend of the 2010 NCAA Men's basketball is in the books.

That means one thing - your bracket is a complete train-wreck, and you're currently getting beat in the illegal but always entertaining office bracket challenge by Marge, the AP clerk who hasn't watched hoops since the shorts were, as she puts it... "hotter and tastier"... Good times...

My boy, John Hollon, at Workforce had a great piece on the similarities between the NCAA Hoops Tourney and college pedigrees in the workforce:

"To me, so many lightly regarded schools surviving and going so far in the basketball tournament is proof of a workforce truism: It’s less about your pedigree and more about how hard you work and persevere. Yes, there are great employees who come out of big-name institutions and companies, but there are also a lot of people who coast on an organization’s reputation. I’ve seen it with people who came out of Ivy League schools as well as some who worked at places like Procter & Gamble, IBM or Microsoft.

You know the ones I’m talking about: the people who played their pedigree up as if it was handed down from the heavens. All too often, it got them not only through the door but into the job—a job they took for granted and didn’t perform particularly well in. You find out a year later, after you got passed over for the job, that the person with the gold-plated pedigree just didn’t work out. And it makes you wonder, “Why wouldn’t they take a chance on me?”

That’s how too much of the business world works. It’s based on shallow assumptions: a glib nature, an attractive personal presence, a gold-plated pedigree. How many people get hired or promoted based on those factors? And how many flop despite the advantage they have?"

John's comparison of hoops and college pedigrees is great.  I'll take it in a similar, yet slightly different direction - I tell people all the time who are slightly embarrassed that they went to Junior College or a C-list school the following:

"Guess what?  After your second real job in the workforce, no one cares where you went to school - if you're a player".

I tell people that because it's true.  To John's point, too much of what we value is where you went to school for your undergraduate.  I agree with John that it's still overvalued, but in the workforce as in college hoops, the great thing about America is that you still get to control your own destiny.  You went to a community college and then finished up at University of Phoenix?  Not exactly an Ivy-leaguer, are you?

Guess what?  I don't care.  Find a way to get the first two jobs doing ANYTHING in your chosen field and then do the following:  KICK @#@ and be exceptional.  Do that and no one cares where you hail from.  You're a player.  Just like the kids from Northern Iowa who knocked off Kansas in the 2010 tourney.

Of course, you have to be exceptional in order for me not to care.  If you went to a community college and are average at what you do, guess who wins the job selection battle 10 years into your career when you're looking to make a move?

That's right, the plodding, average performer with the Ivy League diploma on the wall.  When it's a tie, the vote goes to the rare sheepskin.  If you're up against that, there's only one way to prevent the bias.

Don't be average.  Word.