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Some companies are looking for talent, but the best ones are good people.

28/02/2021

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Diario de Navarra

Roberto Cabezas

Director Career Services University of Navarra

We are living in a very disruptive moment in history. This inflection point is extraordinarily different from other eras of change. And in the world of Education the revolution will be largely digital. What we learn today will most likely not be valid in a few more years.

We have to know and assume that there are new generations that have a new narrative and new needs that go hand in hand with technology. However, this is not just a technological change. It is a much deeper transformation. This forces us to get out of our comfort zone. All of us!

The exponential growth of digital connectivity, globalization and global information, Generation Z and the health and economic crisis are driving profound social changes in the traditional dynamics and models of work around the world. Some still invisible. To survive in this new world, companies and universities must rethink many things. Many ways of doing and Structures are being challenged and are forcing us to consider more powerful transformations.

Our students have changed. Young professionals have changed. We are living in a challenging time. The rules of the game are different and we are obliged to respond to this new scenario.

Young professionals are no longer looking for a lifelong work . Although it may seem surprising to those of us with gray hair. They live their professional life as if they were playing video games, going through short and very intense stages. They cannot be approached with long term professional projects deadline because they will not fit in. Only with jobs that are tight in time will they be motivated and excited.

As everything is changing and it is not known if what is taught/learned now will be useful for the future, the core topic of change is to reinforce the training in competencies (and virtues) to nurture critical thinking and fundamental values, and thus offer a broad perspective and integral vision to the person, helping to build a fairer world, more humane and, above all, a better world.

It is an interesting challenge to respond with forcefulness to the new needs and it has to do with having a very solid academic training , very attuned to the changes. We must acquire the flexibility to offer programs of study that responds to market demands. We do not know what will happen in 20 years, but we have the capacity to train our students in competencies that will cement a solid structure that will allow them to respond with greater strength to these changes.

I am convinced that companies need professionals with humanistic training . This training is of enormous importance nowadays, because there are many companies looking for talent, but the best companies want to find good talented people.

This concept, like everything else, has changed. Talent is not only intelligence, it is also aptitude as a determining factor. It has to do with skills that the working world values and that are at the service of the organization. It also has to do with attitude. I would say to companies: "Don't hire for skills, hire for attitude, skills can always be taught". You don't have to be a genius to be great, right?

Attracting talent will always be important, but retaining it, almost obsessively, is not. Many companies insist on allocating a lot of resources to this internship. A strategy that is undoubtedly on the verge of extinction. The progression of the professional development of young people is going to be different. My grandfather had only one work, my father three and I am on my sixth. I don't know how many my children will have. We should not be afraid of change, of professional development . This forces us to look at talent retention from a different perspective. We are no longer talking about a employee, but about a professional at the service of society, of the world. This implies a change of model. The trends are not aimed at retaining, but at another modality where the wave of professionals passing through a project is much greater. It is necessary to know how to choose the best, but also to let them leave.

We will understand these young people better if we manage to look at them and seduce them from inspiration and not from obligation, from affection and not from imposition. In each of them there is something interesting to discover. Only with an appreciative look we will be able to move their hearts and see value in this new way of interacting with the world.

True talent lies deep down. It has to do with being good people. Society needs, beyond remarkable records, professionals who leave the classrooms of all the universities in the world with projects that enlighten and inspire.