Exponential career growth at your fingertips. Damn good advice to release your creative potential.

"It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be." - Paul Arden

This is a concise micro-guide to making the most of yourself. If you feel talented and timid, this is your moment to make the unthinkable and the impossible reality. Your vision of where or who you want to be is your greatest asset. Without having a goal, it is difficult to strike pay dirt.

Most?managers face an all-too-familiar decision. How do I balance performance and results with my dual obligation to develop my people? Tasks are always prioritised, and training and development are usually cast aside. Remember the adage, "There is no slow period". When learning opportunities are pushed aside, savvy managers know how this can impact the well-being, cohesion, and professional development of the team.

To retain talented staff, they need incentives. People want to be part of something larger than themselves. High salaries are insufficient. They want to know their work matters. This is no better way to incentivise people than by offering them further training so they can extend their capabilities and grow quickly into more demanding roles.

Know your aims for employee retention

To inspire breakthrough conceptual thinking, we suggest going to the Louvre every Sunday, religiously. (Any great art museum will do.) You catch my drift. Get out of your sandpit and expose yourself to any cultural or artistic activity to change your mindset.

There was a time when top international organisations encouraged and paid for critical people to do an MBA. Those days are definitely gone. However, if you are +26, the time has come to take this matter in hand. I need not remind people that in our work environment, reskilling and upskilling have become the “plat du jour” accelerated by remote work. The more geographically spread out work teams become, the more we need leadership skills and behavioural reflexes to handle challenging economic and social conditions.

Formalised education is consistently criticised across the media, primarily for being too academic. The leading business schools understand the dilemma. Most boast of placing their cohorts in internships. INSEAD is great at placing its students. LSE has built “Capstone Projects,” putting students into key organizations so they may upskill rapidly. The list goes on. What I am suggesting is to inform yourself so that you make the right decisions. Every professional agrees that there is no substitute for fieldwork versus merely academic knowledge.

Upskilling for professionals 25-34 should entail higher education

The MBA or MIM degree programmes are ideally suited to career transformation. This type of business education provides more meaning and purpose than choosing to grow careers organically. "Organic" here means slower because, predictably, firms reward and advance progress when it suits them or not at all. Therefore, we must take responsibility for our career development in hand.

Our experience is that the MBA is the ideal career catalyst, which allows you to drive your career forward and even lets you change business practices should you desire this approach. If the hallmark of leading firms is based on the knowledge economy, then you owe it to yourself to boost your credentials and enhance your capabilities. We have witnessed how people we have helped get into a top MBA unlock learning opportunities they would never have had they stayed put. The MBA democratises skill-building and only underscores why you owe it to yourself to do this degree.

Undergrads: For your eyes only

Do degrees still count in the hiring process?

Recently, the NYT published an article on the value of a college degree. Many people now feel that the degree is pointless. They point out that certain demographics are affected more than others. The major reason is cost. Higher education simply costs more in the USA than in any other Western country. This is not new news but is a valuable indicator of how Americans perceive the value of education. This is even true at the master's and MBA levels. With European and Canadian schools offering better ROI, it is no wonder that they have become the first choice among foreign students.

If this continues, then skills-based hiring makes sense. The next question to pose is, is skills-based hiring an American phenomenon? Or is it global? In Europe, for the moment, you must get a degree from a decent school should you be planning for a prolific career. In France, this is especially so. However, in the UK, which follows American trends more, there could be a shift. For example, I do not know any other country where if you study literature at Oxford or Cambridge can you work post-grad in finance in the City.

Other folks are saying that skills-based hiring is a global phenomenon. The reasons are similar, certain organisations are having trouble filling roles. Using my UK example again, the Guardian ran an article on the issue that the hospitality sector is suffering because of misguided immigration policies. This also applies to technical roles that require some level of expertise.

Another key issue is what employees want from their employers. This started with Millennials and is also a concern of Gen Z. The terms of engagement have changed. Employees increasingly demand more flexibility and development. There is no going back to the pre-COVID work environment. Skills-based hiring enables this flexibility and so does remote work. The number of people we have been helping, all engage in remote work at least 60% of the time. Some only meet with their supervisors and colleagues on weekly Zoom conferences. The social costs of this have yet to be measured, but there is another feel to corporate interaction.

Remote work, however, is not for everyone (provided you have a choice). Interfacing with your manager becomes crucial. The plus side allows you to align your life with your job by juggling your hours depending on where you and the company are based. One of our colleagues, states that cross-generational working becomes cumbersome due to a conflict in known work habit behaviours.

Let’s return to our original theme, Is it worth going to college (or university)?

This has become a very subjective and personal choice. I believe that getting an education is one of the best things you can do. It broadens your horizons, teaches you skill sets, exposes you to diverse cultures and ideas, and gives you a platform for personal growth. It is also true that what you study matters. Although I think we should all have what was once called a “liberal” education, we need to major in a subject that leads to worthwhile employment. This is the world we live in. To be well-rounded and good at any job, including technical ones, we need to better understand human beings, personality, psychology, and how to work in teams with respect, dignity, and empathy. People need to be taught that zero-sum ethics is detrimental should we want people to live harmoniously with each other. College should have an obligation to develop well-rounded people and advance thought and investigation into the human condition. This is incredibly important.

What happens, to people who do not or can’t follow this path? We shouldn’t shut them out of careers. Pathways need to be created for skills that can be learned in apprenticeship scenarios. An inclusive economy is more important today than ever before. Dignity is built on knowing your value.

Bringing it back home

Because it is our core business to help people be all they can be. We can?provide practical steps to build?the?momentum?you need?toward?more?productive learning?and shared responsibilities to foster stronger professional?relationships.?This iterative learning approach allows our clients?to learn through close observation, practice, feedback, and coaching, which is effective for?the MBA admissions process.

About the author

Andrew Scharf is an Award-Winning MBA Admissions Consultant and also offers ?? Executive Coaching ?? He is widely recognised for helping top performers and aspiring professionals be all they can be. His?mission is to inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world at Whitefield Consulting .