Monster.com founder graduating
Associated Press
BOSTON — Jeff Taylor, founder of the job-search site Monster.com, is filling a gap in his own resume this weekend by getting a college degree.
Associated Press library photo • Jan. 24, 2001
Taylor, 40, will graduate tomorrow from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 23 years after he first arrived on campus. He will even be the speaker at his own graduation.
Jeff Taylor, 40, will receive his degree and address his classmates 23 years after taking his first Amherst course.
Taylor spent six years in Amherst in the late 1970s and early '80s, but could not decide on a major and never managed to string together the graduation requirements.
Eventually, he left college, went into marketing and then, in 1994, started Monster.com, which bills itself as the largest job site on the Web, with more than 10 million resumes posted.
"There are a number of famous people that have been successful in life without having a college degree," Taylor said. "But I wasn't proud of that fact."
Taylor earned a special MBA for executives at the Harvard Business School in 1999.
Then he enrolled in UMass' University Without Walls program. Since he traveled too much to attend classes, he worked out an arrangement to complete his work independently.
He earned several credits by teaching management, and wrote a paper on human capital management and marketing in the new economy.
Taylor will be among 97 students to earn degrees this year from the University Without Walls.
