Let Education do the talking...not the certificate..

Recently, I was asked to speak at a Careers Evening for Travel and Tourism and Hospitality graduates at Oxford Brookes University. It was wonderful to see such enthusiastic, ambitious young people despite the economic troubles blighting their graduation.

Ambition in people I find is rather rare. People often think that because they have been working at a job or company for a period of time that perhaps they deserve promotion. In fact promotion, I believe, takes a force of personality and a driving nature to achieve to be deserved.

I spoke to three ambitious young people. One wanted to take on Expedia with his new idea and was quite convinced he could do this – asking me how to go about getting funding for his idea. Another wanted to travel to New Zealand and open his own hostel type of business there. The third wanted to open his own restaurant and wondered what sort of job he should do first before he did this.

All three were seeking advice on running a business and how much experience they ought to have first. All of them had clear goals, focus, drive and ambition and I am of no doubt that whatever they start off doing, they will be high achievers – even if their plans change.

Other students were asking whether going on to study for a Masters degree might improve their career chances. They also wondered if it mattered what job they took first and whether that would hamper their careers if it wasn’t what they really wanted to do.

All of these students showed maturity and intelligence and all their worries were groundless because in fact that’s all employers actually want – nice, enthusiastic people that they can mould and train in their businesses.

These young people didn’t realise that although qualifications are important, they are simply tickets to further education or a job or a promotion. Once you join a company, everyone pretty much forgets what qualification you have never mind what grade it is! It is what the Education has taught these young people that has produced these ambitious, inquisitive and inspiring graduates.

So long as these graduates can show that they can learn quickly, offer ideas, challenge the status quo in a constructive way and use their initiative to problem solve and improve business, then their Education will speak for itself. It is not the Masters Degree that is any better than the degree itself or even a GCSE, it is the development of the person taking further Education and how they use it in their careers’ that makes the difference!

thoughts?

Add comment