Fresh Talent in Demand

I had the pleasure of working with Monika Hamori, an IE Business School professor, who is rightfully among top 40 business school professors under the age of 40. I helped her with research on a number of topics, including labor market intermediaries, CEO careers and job hopping. Also, we worked on the topic of grad HiPos, i.e. high-potential employees fresh out of college or recent graduates with a few years of professional experience under the belt. Having gone through a few assessments myself, I have the perspective from the other side of the fence, and surely I can boast some professional hands-on experience, since I dealt closely with the Shell graduate program.

The article on HiPos and job hoppers will be published soon, and until then the only thing that I can share is a list of questions that one needs to consider before implementing or getting into a leadership development program, so this post will be interested both for practitioners and graduate job seekers.

So, what do you need to think about before tackling a graduate program?

• what level of talent is targeted: fresh out of college, MBAs, grads with experience?
• what is the talent supply on the market (local and international)?
• are you targeting any specific backgrounds, e.g. engineering or investment banking?
• what metrics do you use to rate the program effectiveness? E.g.:
• the graduate attrition rates after 1/3/5 years
• ROI: investment vs outcome
• offer acceptance rate
• total number of candidates vs enrolled into the program at various levels
• # of staff administering the program
• milestones: future assignments lined up, coaches ready, major program events carried out, etc.
• what do people within the organization say (focus groups)? How do their opinions match with the opinions of the graduates themselves?
• program design: 
• duration
• philosophy
• talent-driven vs vacancy-driven approach
• program elements (mentoring, trainings, personalized development plans, etc.)
• number and types of assignments
• what is the level of organizational support? Can you detect ostracism or cynicism with general staff and the management?
• how would you assess internal equity of incoming graduates (total compensation & position matching)?
• how do you market the program both internally and externally?

P.S. Personal observation: American Idol type of talent programs never works. This applies to those companies that draft HiPos from the market and then do not know what to do with them: as a result, both suffer. However, it is a topic for another post.