The first time I applied for a private sector job (it's been a while), a recruiter called me for an initial phone interview. She noticed my degree - astrophysics, specializing in something called time series analysis - and was very skeptical of my qualifications. She ask asked if there was any math involved with that. True story.

That was 1995. For many years, I still enjoyed stealth status, with only people who really knew analytics understanding the significance of a background like mine. Not anymore. Even though I am not on the market and don't visit job sites, I delete about 20 email / LinkedIn messages / etc a day. Last week at SAS Analytics 2014, I sat down in the demo room to suggest an answer to a user's programming question (try bootstrapping when big data blows out your computer, because the small samples run in succession used in bootstrapping will keep your computer from running out of resources). An hour later, I was still there answering questions and had started to draw something of a crowd.

Stealthy no more, all rules are off when it comes to names on degrees. What matters is a clearly demonstrated ability to (1) solve real world problems (2) using dirty, real-world data - not just homework problems - combined with strong communication skills: the ability to talk science AND talk business. If you know just one, work hard to learn the other.