Stepping Stones: the Pathways to a Career

‘Where do I get started’? This is the most important question that every future professional will ask and therefore, every recruiter, employer or institution should always remember. We need to make sure that there is a clear pathway for every young person or adult, to progress steadily, from a hobby in their spare time; to full training, and then to a career in the profession that he or she has chosen. But for a new recruit to do this, a series of stepping stones need to be in place; leading from the moment a person shows an interest in a new profession, to the moment when he or she becomes a fully-fledged member of that industry. This is our challenge.

A big part of joining any profession is the path that a new recruit takes to get into that profession. It doesn’t just begin when the new recruit joins a course to study for a new profession. The experience is earned at a far earlier stage. For example I have been interested in conducting singers, but how do you become and MD? It has certainly helped that my choir’s leaders have let me have a go at conducting rehearsals. This is the first step. Anyone serious about a career MDing can use this experience to get on the career path to becoming one. The same logic applies to every other profession.

Clubs and societies are not just pastimes. They are arguably the first step in the process leading to a career. This I would say, is where professionals really begin. As the uninitiated, they learn to work as part of a group, learning a skill, and the commitment and responsibility that goes with it. They learn teamwork, and the importance that any one individual plays in the process. And then they put this into a game or performance that can inspire many.

This life experience can then be used to gain entry into new courses, or to volunteer for unpaid tasks in the profession of choice. The recruit can then build upon this work, to apply for placements and internships in the companies of his or her chosen industry. The past experience counts for a lot when a recruit is fighting to break into a new industry. The placements and internships can then lead to an apprenticeship, or part time/temporary role. Until finally, the new recruit is offered a full time job, making his or her ambition into a real career.

That is how it should work for every profession that a person wants to get into. Sadly, not all of the steps that people need to get into professions like sport or the performing arts are in place right now.  Let's Be Cops may be a comedy about two hapless police impersonators; but at the heart of it, is the serious story of two unsuccessful men, who are trying to do something worthwhile with their lives: and after all, how do you become a cop? To any recruiter facing a shortfall in candidates for your industry, I say to you: the reason you don't have enough people, is most likely that the career pathways are not in place to allow them into your profession. The clubs and societies for these industries, at the time of writing, are dropping away; as their organisers are having to divert attention to pay their bills. Resources are also tight, and I understand that pastimes are not high on the list of people’s priorities right now.

But at the same time, these clubs societies and voluntary initiatives need to be kept going for the sake of tomorrow’s professionals and industries. How do you become a scientist? Or an engineer? Or a doctor? I suspect that if the best doctors, engineers or scientists were honest, they had a genuine passion for their profession from a young age, and were involved in clubs or societies, read magazines about, and did voluntary work to do with each of their industries. This is something that we need to nurture today: both for young people interested in these careers for the first time; and for adults who want a career change. Otherwise, as other bloggers have proven, lack of experience means that an applicant falls into the old Catch 22 situation, and is not able to get the job:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140928204520-12998207-survey-conducted-on-linkedin-states-the-obvious-lack-of-experience-is-the-biggest-issue-entry-level-professionals-have?trk=object-title

To use sales logic, as I was once taught in training, a sales campaign must have 3 key elements to be successful: ease, choice, and accessibility. It should be easy for customers to find products: an online search, phone call or personal enquiry should quickly take them to the product they are after. The second part is that they must be able to have a wide range of choices available for the product or service. And if we couldn’t find them the one they wanted, there should have been plenty of alternatives available. The third element was accessibility. A customer should be able to find, select and purchase a product directly, without having to spend time going through screen after screen of red tape and legal jargon. These elements ensured that the campaign ran smoothly, and made it a huge success. That is why this logic should be applied to recruitment as well.

Consider the English Football Association. Their system was designed so that, in theory, a lowly amateur football team could get professional status and then rise through the divisions. For a few decades at least, the best really could get to the top. Granted the system has been eroded by internal politics and by forces of globalisation of sport, but for a long time, at least, the principle of a real meritocracy was established. How many careers have been made and how many millions of people’s lives have been inspired, because of this?

Indeed passion goes a long way to success. While proposing the plan for a visual arts festival, I suggested that the organisers recruit their volunteers from among the existing arts clubs in the city. It was there that the passion would be found. As the saying goes: if you’re looking for an apple tree, look in an orchard. People who loved art would seize the opportunity to take part in such an event. They would always go the extra mile to help; and for them, it would be a dream come true.

And as I found, when doing voluntary work for the arts; young people’s passion for the industry is something else. Having been bombarded by media stereotypes of juvenile delinquents and ‘spongers’ living off the state, I thought that young people didn’t have the drive to apply themselves. I was in for a rude awakening.

It soon became clear from volunteering as a youth advisor to help children and young people in theatrical, that there were actually a huge number of them wanting to be on the stage. As I have written in other articles, at least 3 amateur societies had a waiting list twice the size of the society itself! The average number on the waiting lists was 80 candidates, which for England, was a very large number. Fortunately an academy system was devised, to engage the young people not in current shows. But all the same the issue was clear. It wasn’t that young people didn’t want to try at all: the opportunities simply weren’t there for them.

And the dedication of these children and young people was extraordinary. In one case, a girl came to audition for a part in a rock musical. Through hours of makeup and months of practise, she had moulded herself into the exact image of the character she was to portray. If her audition was anything like the others, her energy and dedication would be to a professional’s level. The panel would have seen that her character was perfect in every detail.  

She was 10 years old.

I came away from that show feeling very humbled by such dedication.

An even more humbling experience came a few year later, after my role, when I went to see a schools’ version of the musical Les Miserables. Arguably one of the greatest musicals of all time, it requires some serious understanding of the characters and the dramatic setting to pull it off, as audiences may have noticed from the Hugh Jackman film, and from the epic anniversary edition at the 02 Arena. On stage, you can’t just sing the numbers: you have to perform very word, know every character, and live the musical in every which way. So this was going to a huge challenge for any group of young people to take on.

I took my place at the back of the seating area and waited for the performance to begin. A scaled down version of the orchestration began. But it did not prepare me for what came next. Over the course of the following 3 hours, this group of children and young people managed to out-sing, out-act and out-perform every professional group I had ever known. We, the audience, were moved to genuine tears by the death scenes, roused to our feet by the fight scenes, and overawed by the sheer drama of what these young people did. The standing ovation that we all gave them at the end was – I can assure you – quite deserved. I defy any professional dramatist not to be moved by the performance that they gave. It is no surprise that one of the young people is now in a film academy in New York, even as I write.

And yet most of these talented young people would be made to go into ‘safe’ professions, where they would perform repetitive tasks, which were nothing to do with the profession they wanted, their talent buried and never used. Indeed the same can be said for all professions. How many young scientists, or engineers are we turning away, by playing it safe with their future? How many future cops or doctors are we discouraging, by forcing young people into roles that aren’t right for them, just to pay the bills? I say the same thing that I thought when coming away from my voluntary work, and later, from that spectacular show: these kids deserve better. And so do the adults who want a new career.

So how can we make sure that professions really are accessible to the young people and adults who want to work in them? I propose that recruiters consider the following measures, to make this achievable:

 

·         There should be an equivalent feedback service to Trip Advisor, for all recruitment and application issues. This will show where the gaps are in the recruitment for every profession, and will allow the Government, and employers to bridge them effectively.

·         Talent scouts should be sent to every club or society for the profession for which they are recruiting. Passion goes a long way, and the genuine interest a person shows in a hobby, could make it a real profession for them.

·         Clubs and societies that have existed for more than 10 years should be encouraged to negotiate actively, with Alumni/former members who went into the industry. For example, a science club with members who are keen on studying for the profession would benefit from the advice of Alumni who are practising scientists. If successful, training schemes might even be set up, to allow enthusiasts a direct route into the industry.

·         Festivals should be promoted to people who would not normally have access to their subject matter. For example, my old university’s Summer Music Festival gave me, a law student at the time, a chance to be part of something I would never normally get into: an opera! But this is the kind of thing that festival organisers should encourage. Give people a chance to take part in something extraordinary, and you might just have opened a career path for someone.

·         Voluntary placements could be combined with mentoring schemes, so that a student/non-graduate can volunteer his or her help in an organisation, in exchange for mentoring and coaching for that profession. This would work in a similar way to the Knowledge Transfer Partnership Schemes, only we should make sure that it is applied systematically, to every possible candidate, for every possible profession. A Knowledge Transfer Agreement, in effect.

·         Non-graduates who receive a certificate qualification should be automatically registered by the awarding body, onto a recruitment network for that profession. For example, non-graduates with a technology qualification could be registered onto specialised engineering recruiters, to be taken on by them as trainees.

·         Businesses could integrate their recruitment processes with the relevant colleges and universities, so that for example the Business Schools’ graduates are fed directly into major corporations, Law graduates into local government; graduates of artistic professions into teacher training and so on. A special selection process could be agreed on, to encourage recruiters to give their client college or university the first say in candidates.

 

By taking these measures, we can put a series of stepping stones in place, so that a person with an interest in any industry has a direct route into that industry, and can gain all the necessary experience to get there, along the way. Let’s remember that this is young people’s future, and our present. As we adults know, there is nothing worse than looking back with regret at what might have been: you only live once. So by creating an unbroken line between the hobby, the study, the training, and the profession itself, we can ensure that the next generation of professionals get their chance: and that every stepping stone is in place for them to take it.