The TalTech Revolution is coming...

Here are the opening paragraphs of a piece I wrote recently for Recruitment Agency Now: 

Graduate recruitment, right across the economy, is changing. After decades of minimal disruption, the sector is in the early stages of upheaval. Tom Davenport explains why.

The winds of change are blowing and as the clouds clear years from now, I predict that we will be able to identify two big currents driving the change. The first of these is a social development, characterised by altering perceptions of what makes for a good career and a good job. The second, unsurprisingly, is technological.

As a graduate in the 1940s, my grandfather joined a company where he remained for his entire career, leaving well into the 21st century. Such a trajectory is no more conceivable to today’s graduates than would be the idea of using a landline to arrange to see someone for a drink. This is the essence of the first ‘big current’.

Where previously stability and long service were hallmarks of a good career, we see now a predilection for variety that would have appeared capricious to my grandfather’s generation. Critically, just as preferences have changed, so have employer and peer perceptions, meaning that moving between companies, sectors and functions is considered not just acceptable but commendable. Breadth of experience is valued where depth of experience used to be. We see this in the growth of the ‘second jobber’ market, typically kicking in two years into a career.

To continue reading the full article, click here.