One year, Growing Talent Is Still Going Strong

A fortnight ago, I met the latest successful associates to join Growing Talent. I was there to offer my experience and advice as someone who had completed the same journey they were undertaking and successfully arrived at my final destination: full time, satisfying employment. For my final exercise, I asked each associate to write a letter to themselves. In this letter, I asked them to put their reasons for wanting to complete Growing Talent, no matter how lofty; what their ambitions were, what they wanted to do with their lives, and all the little things that being unemployed makes harder.

If I had written that same letter to myself a year ago, I wouldn’t have ever guessed I’d be in the position I am today. It is a true pleasure to still be involved in Growing Talent, meeting each round of new associates and offering what advice I can. In the next month I’ll also be facilitating the Mental Health First Aid course. So the student becomes the teacher!

This month marks the year anniversary of the beginning of my Growing Talent journey. It is strange to think that in twelve short months, I have gone from nervousness and no confidence, scraping my way through the GT interview stage, to regularly addressing rooms full of strangers, looking for ways to help them through the same process. My job goes as merrily as it did when I first started – if there is a honeymoon period, it is yet to be over.

As much as I would like to flatter myself in thinking that I belonged to some elite, peerless Growing Talent group, the truth is that every group I’ve ran workshops for has been bright and engaging. Running through real life work scenarios with them – all based on stories that have happened to associates of yore – it was astonishing how quickly they grasped the crux of the issue at hand.

I have every confidence that our latest team of associates will excel in the companies they are going to, and it shall be a privilege to watch them develop into the stars of tomorrow.

–          Chris Thompson, Growing Talent Associate