Yes, to get to the top in our highly mediocre society that definitely is the best way to go.
The truth is though, that for sales, cutting edge private research as well as executive appointments, many companies are quietly dumping all the non-critical educational parts of resumes in the dumpster. The quest for profit is the great equalizer. You can not keep a good man, or woman, down.
The big self improvement push has created too many employee reviews that lead to unnecessary mind stifling training.
Smart companies are now just letting their brightest employees shine.
A very high percentage of research has recently been shown to be junk. That is what you get when too many cooks are stirring the pot. It has been shown that a great meeting is less than 15 minutes long and where one slow talking person has one great idea and another person has a big nerf bat to keep the fast talking empty heads in line.