Talent Management is critical in schools

Encouraging & nurturing talent in schools is essential. Picture: Sean MacEntee

There seems to be a lot in the press at the moment about the lack of women in executive positions. Following on from articles yesterday, and our earlier blog posts, I have spotted this article in The Telegraph today (13th April 2013) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9985111/Forget-women-at-the-top-business-must-work-harder-to-appeal-to-school-girls.html

I can see the article has attracted a lot of comments already. Once again I would state quotas don't work and are divisive - promotion should be on talent. However, that said we should be growing talent at an early age in school - which unfortunately is not always the case.

I was educated in the state system and was fortunate to go to a good all-girls school. I was an academic pupil and had decided I was interested in becoming an accountant. To this day I remember meeting with the then deputy head to discuss career advice and my options. I told her about my aspirations. 

Career advice? She said to me "accountancy is a very difficult profession and most people fail so I would advise you to do something else"   

How demotivational was that?  Thankfully I was, and still am, a confident and strong-willed person. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and looking back her comments only served to make me even more determined!

I am pleased to say I qualified as a CIMA accountant in 1995!

My worry is that this mentality may still exist. We should be encouraging young people, both male and female, to follow their dreams and tell them that anything is possible with hard work.  That is why at the One Stop Career Shop one of our core business values is Demonstrate Integrity. We believe in positively contributing to growing talent, as they are the future. We work actively with local schools to help young people develop work life skills.