Business in Brussels: formal or informal

A recent article published in the journal Cariere, mentioned that “the correlation between formal education and your actual career path is almost zero”. The article also explains why: “whatever you have accumulated in your years of formal education will not help if what you learn year after year is not worth putting in practice”. This is very well when young university graduates with a Master’s degree, or even doctorates, fail to find a job with the diploma(s) obtained.

In this context, the author of the article identifies three characteristics of professionals who were successful in entirely different areas than they were educated:

1. The fact that they understand their strengths, their natural abilities, and they choose a professional field that makes the best use of their qualities.
2. The ability to learn on their own and from their own initiatives: from books, articles, training programmes, from others or their own practical experience.
3. The fact that they understand that it is one thing to have a degree, but it is another thing entirely to produce real results, and therefore they focus to learn how to get these results – not on gaining awards.

Personally, I don’t think you should skip formal education, but the secret is to find the right balance that blends formal training with non-formal and informal training.

I’m coaching now for more than one year on these topics with my company DL International. I give one day trainings on “How to find a job in Brussels” and in parallel I give half day trainings on “Realizing your own business in Europe’s capital”.

Dan LUCA / Bruxelles