Top5 Ways to Develop Young Talent

Chief Executive Officer of Encouraging Women Across All Borders (EWAAB) Sam Collins,  joins Tara Thuber for a discussion on the Top5 Ways to Develop Young Talent.

EWAAB is a nonprofit dedicated to building a bridge to a world where women and non-binary individuals can enter and rise in any professional field they choose.  The Bridge Program serves undergraduate students by providing them with the tools and confidence needed to scale a traditionally male-dominated industry like STEM or finance.

To learn more about EWABB, please visit: www.ewaab.org

Top5 Ways to Develop Young Talent

1. Mentorship
2. Peer-to-Peer Learning
3. Allow Failure & Provide Feedback
4. Provide Space for Creativity & Ownership
5. Be Consistent

About Sam Collins:

Sam Collins first joined EWAAB as a volunteer, eager to impact young students, and has since made significant contributions to the development and expansion of the organization's core program, Bridge. Following her impact as a volunteer she was asked to step up and lead EWAAB in the next phase of its growth.

She has earned a B.A. degree from Union College, NY and M.A. degree from Teachers College Columbia University. Additionally, she has a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Northeastern University. A passionate advocate for gender inclusion and equity, Sam uses her experience in higher education to help EWAAB build a world where women and non-binary folks can enter and rise in any field they choose.

Transcript

Sam Collins: 0:08

Hey everyone, welcome back to Top5 brought to you by DefinedTalent. We are a results driven service working with clients to connect them with quality talent as well as working to make an impact within the recruiting industry. We talk straight about today's professional world with real world professionals, experts in recruitment, job seekers and business owners alike. Have a question for us send it in and you might spur our next conversation. I'm Tara Thurber, Co-founder and Director of Talent Partnerships here at DefinedTalent snd joining me today is Sam Collins, CEO of EWAAB Encouraging Women Across All Borders. Hey, Sam, how are you today? I'm doing all right. How are you?

Tara Thurber: 0:53

I am doing well. Thank you. Very excited to have you on today. And I think let's just launch right into this and let's give the audience a little bit of an overview of your professional background.

Sam Collins: 1:07

Okay, great. Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it. So I'm an educator at heart, my master's in higher and post secondary education from Teachers College. And I've worked at a couple of universities, doing administrative work as well as developing curriculum, professional development for both students and for faculty. And while working at one of those universities, I started actually, as a volunteer for EWAAB.

Tara Thurber: 1:32

Oh, wow.

Sam Collins: 1:34

Brought on by one of the co-founders because my background is in higher ed. And so I know how to work with students and develop curriculum. And she asked me to step in to help fix up the curriculum.

Tara Thurber: 1:48

Yeah, yup.

Sam Collins: 1:48

Basically give it structure, so that we're making sure that the outcomes are exactly what we were looking for. And so I stayed on as a volunteer until we got to a point where we're able to hire somebody on full time and the board asked me to step in. And because I absolutely love what I do, I said yes. And so I've been doing this for the past couple of years. And it's amazing.

Tara Thurber: 2:10

Oh, my goodness. So explaine to me EWAAB's origins and mission.

Sam Collins: 2:19

Yeah so we were co founded by two physicists. They were very young at the time senior undergraduate students. And they got together and honestly fed up with looking around and seeing no other women in their classes, no women as their professors and so few women in the field, and they wanted to make sure that students coming up behind them and didn't have the same experience. They basically wanted to make sure that young women had the opportunity to not only persist in whatever field they were passionate about, and wanted to go into, but had an opportunity to thrive. And so it was a very grassroots mentorship program, they just call up their friends at a bunch of universities, and we're like, Hey, we're going to try and make a difference are you in? And so that first year, we started off with 27 students, at universities around the world. And when I came in, we were able to put together a more structured curriculum, but it really just started out as, okay, what do we want to see in these students? What do they need in order to feel confident that they are going to succeed in this field? And what sort of skills do they need in order to get that next professional opportunity and to make that next step in the in the field? And so our goal is that young women and non binary students have the opportunity to enter and rise in any field they choose. Basically, the hope is that when they're done with our mentorship program, they are confident and capable young professionals able to take on whatever challenge they face.

Tara Thurber: 3:55

Ah, I just got goosebumps. That's so amazing. It's so amazing to have support like that. I wish when I was in school, there was support like that, or, you know, I talked about back in the day, when I was in school. I mean, I didn't even know what a mentor was. I didn't even I didn't even know what an internship was. And when I graduated, I felt so lost. So knowing that EWAAB is around and available, do you work across the United States with students?

Sam Collins: 4:33

Yeah, so we have we have a number universities in the US, as well as Canada, the UK, and we have alumni in Australia and a few other European countries. That's what I'm saying. The first year we started off they call them so many universities and so we were immediately International, which is amazing.

Tara Thurber: 4:51

That's so amazing! So, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics from April to July of this year, the youth labor force grew by 2.2 million, or 10.4%. Does this affect the current state of the modern workforce?

Sam Collins: 5:13

Well, I think that that statistic is relatively seasonal. So April to July tends to be when students are getting going off for their summer they've just graduated or they're getting internships. But I think that there is a trend, at least in overall a lot of young people going into the workforce.

Tara Thurber: 5:30

Yeah.

Sam Collins: 5:31

And my hope is maybe not so much that the age affects the workforce, but the idea that there is value in professionals who have the ability to bring in new and innovative ideas, and valuing the really just the fact that anybody can learn in these positions, and you can bring in things that you maybe not wouldn't have expected.

Tara Thurber: 6:02

Wow. Now, do you feel that current CEOs and directors might be pushed out by the younger generation?

Sam Collins: 6:10

I think it's an interesting question. The average age of folks in the C suite right now is about 56. And they're typically like CEOs are typically out by about 65.

Tara Thurber: 6:21

Yeah.

Sam Collins: 6:22

But I think that it's not so much that young people are pushing out older folks.

Tara Thurber: 6:30

Right.

Sam Collins: 6:30

I think that if there is a shift, it's a shift in, like I said, before, that mindset of we need to be able to adapt and learn in the profession, and organizations aren't going to be able to do that to find success, unless they're willing to change their ideas, to bring in new ideas from a diverse set of folks. I think that we're sort of seeing that with tech startups that a lot of the folks in the C suite there tend to be younger. I don't know if we've seen that in other industries yet. But I think that, you know, that could be a positive trend, less the actual age part, but the ability to do new things, and to accept that there are changes in the world.

Tara Thurber: 7:17

Yeah, awesome. So let's actually talk about diversity. Your website showcases some of the best statistics that lead to introducing your Bridge Program, share with us about the Bridge curriculum, and why a program like this is vital for young professionals.

Sam Collins: 7:35

Yeah, so basically, the statistic you're talking about is that companies will outperform other companies when they have diverse talent. And that unfortunately, there are not a lot of women in the C suite. I think that there, you know, 24% of C suite positions are held by women. And that statistic doesn't take into account women of color. And there are just no significant figures for non binary folks.

Tara Thurber: 8:04

Yeah.

Sam Collins: 8:05

And basically, our our curriculum hopes to change that. We want our students to move through our program, and by the end, feel confident in their skills, and really to develop those fundamental professional skills. One of our philosophies is don't just believe in what you know, but believe in your ability to learn. And so what we hope is that by moving through this mentorship program, where you are interacting with your peers, with mentors, both senior undergraduate students and professionals, you have the ability to figure out new ways to approach problems you're able to develop the skills that are necessary no matter what field you're in, so cold emailing, presentation skills, those sorts of things. So that when you leave us, maybe you don't have the technical skills, like knowing all of the coding languages out there, or you know exactly how the financial markets work. But when you step into a role, you have those fundamental skills of communication, problem solving, you have a network of supporters, both your peers and mentors, that mean that you can take on those challenges you can learn to approach those problems successfully to you know, learn that coding language while you're at the the internships that you can be a productive member of your team, but maybe have a leg up from other interns who didn't have an opportunity maybe to learn those fundamental professional skills.

Tara Thurber: 9:38

So amazing. Now, let me ask you too, for your program, do people, individuals, young professionals joining your program, do they have to be attending a college/university going to school in order to be in your program, or can it be is it age specific? Tell me a little bit about that.

Sam Collins: 9:58

Yeah, so right now we only have students who are actively attending an accredited institution doesn't have to be a four year university. Can we have a number of community college students who have moved the program.

Tara Thurber: 10:10

Awesome.

Sam Collins: 10:10

But basically, yeah, you have to be at a school. It's it's better for us to have student mentors so that you get to learn and grow that way. And, you know, logistically a bit easier.

Tara Thurber: 10:24

(laughs) Right, right. And another question, too. So if a student wanted to sign up, what are some of the options? I mean, I know we're talking about different skills for these young professionals to learn. But I guess when we're talking about it EWAAB as a whole, are there - And the program, especially, specifically, the Bridge program- What are students - What should they expect? Or what can they expect in a program?

Sam Collins: 11:05

Yeah, so students who join our program, can expect to have a meeting a month. So we have seven meetings throughout the academic year, in each meeting, typically about an hour, but we have designed our curriculum so that it's very focused on discussions. So that that's where the learning happens, you're not getting a lecture.

Tara Thurber: 11:25

Right.

Sam Collins: 11:25

Like this is how you send a cold email or exactly how you set up your LinkedIn profile. But you start off by watching a video, a session anchor, a professional Internet work, who has an interesting story to tell, as it relates to whatever the goal for that session is.

Tara Thurber: 11:40

Okay.

Sam Collins: 11:41

And basically, that sparks the conversation. Our primary mentor, or more senior undergraduate student then leads a discussion with their their mentees, trying to get them to think about how this session anchor has used this skill, like cold emailing or networking in their life, and how that might be able to relate to them, sort of following a thread from the anchor to the challenge of the day, which is them actually going out and using this skill. So if the goal for the session is to start networking, the challenge might be to conduct an informational interview. So go off, send a cold email to somebody that you think is interesting, and do an informational interview, take some notes on it. And then come back the next session, tell everybody how it went, what you learned, what you struggled with. And then you move on to the next session anchor discussion and challenge. And the hope is that each session sort of builds on each other so that you're using things that you did in the last session in this session in order to help you succeed in that challenge.

Tara Thurber: 12:45

I mean, to me, that's very exciting. Because I find in the recruiting industry and talking to young professionals right out of college, a lot of them don't even know how to put a resume together, or how to update their LinkedIn, or how to network. I mean, especially, listen, I hate going back to this, but coming out of COVID I mean, so many individuals kind of reverted and went introvert, and the social anxiety is there, or just going out and introducing yourself to somebody. So all of this support is, it's just phenomenal. And really kind of honing in on diversity. You know, it's so important to be able to walk the walk and talk the talk and support everybody. And I feel I mean, this holds a big piece in my heart especially and, and to DefindTalent, quite honestly. Because, you know, it's something that is a pillar for who we are. So to be able to see that this is what EWAAB's doing out there. I mean, it's just sounds so amazing. Would you be able to share one of your favorite success stories or positive outcomes you've seen while working with EWAAB?

Sam Collins: 14:07

Yeah, absolutely. My favorite is actually probably not what indicates the success you might expect. So I could talk about you know, students doing really well in internships or cold emailing and getting an awesome interview on their own. Any number of those things says yes, this mentorship program is definitely working. But my favorite success story, a student told me a couple of years ago that after going through probably about half of our program, she went home to visit her family and she held her own in a political debate with her dad.

Tara Thurber: 14:46

Oh! (laughs)

Sam Collins: 14:49

Doesn't sound like that is directly tied to the mentorship program or that it's a huge success, but being able to talk to somebody about a difficult topic, somebody that you look up to, and maybe haven't been able to feel confident in that environment before, to go home and say I have this newfound confidence from this program that I'm doing, I know I have this support, I know I can do this. And so I'm going to go and I'm just gonna do it, I'm going to have this conversation with my dad, and she walked away, she came back and she was like, Sam, I did this thing. And I was so excited. And I, and I just love it. That's the program isn't, you know, specifically, yes, if you're a physicist, you should come here, and you're going to get that that next internship, for sure. It's more fundamental than that. It's feeling this confidence in being able to go out and put it to work in any scenario.

Tara Thurber: 15:47

It must be so like, the word that comes to me is empowering for these individuals. I mean, listen, politics and a dad, that's hard as it is (laughs). But this individual must have just felt so empowered to be able to say, I'm me, and this is what I believe in. And that is, I mean, there's nothing that could make up for that I feel, there's nothing that could replace that. That feeling of empowerment for an individual.

Sam Collins: 16:20

Yeah, that's exactly why I was so excited. I tell that story a lot. Because it doesn't really sound exactly like the success story you might expect from EWAAB but I really feel that one. And it has made me proud. I mean, years later, I'm still like, yes, that was awesome. I'm so glad this is working (laughs).

Tara Thurber: 16:37

(laughs) Oh, that's so amazing. Sam, I'm so excited to really learn more about EWAAB and everything that you guys are doing and be a part of supporting you all. So what would be your Top5 Ways to Develop Young Talent for our audience out there?

Sam Collins: 16:56

Yeah. So there are no, I actually should talk about why it's important to develop young talent. It's not only recruiting young talent and putting them in place. But you have to make sure that they aren't coming into your company and saying, Okay, well, I'll be here for two years. And then I'm leaving.

Tara Thurber: 17:15

Yes.

Sam Collins: 17:15

We want to make sure that that young talent is thriving in your organization, bringing in new ideas and doing

Tara Thurber: 17:19

(laughs) good work, but also staying on for a long enough time to be able to build on that work. And so these are some of the best ways, I think, for companies to make sure that that work is

Sam Collins: 17:35

Having a program in place is going to be really happening. So first, it may be a surprise, but my first tip is mentorship. impactful for that young talent, having somebody who is more senior in the organization be able to talk to the this new person and say, Okay, this is how things in this organization works. This is how you're supposed to do things in this role, not only because they're young, and so they may not have a lot of experience. But I mean, any person coming into an organization is going to have to learn the ins and outs of that specific company. And so having a mentor can be incredibly impactful. My second tip is peer to peer learning. So putting together a group of young professionals to learn from each other, putting together a group of interns at one of the universities that I worked at, we had a young professional group are run by young professionals for young professionals. And so we do lunch and learns basically where somebody in the group would present on a topic that they felt confident in or they thought other people could benefit from. And then you had a discussion so that you had a strong network of folks at the company that you relate to, and that you can learn from. And so that will help not only for these young folks to learn and develop their skills, but also to feel really connected to the organization.

Tara Thurber: 18:58

Amazing.

Sam Collins: 19:00

My third tip is sort of two parts, basically creating a culture of allowing for failure. You're going to I mean, everybody learns the most from when they fall flat on their face. The best and the most learning happens. And for

Tara Thurber: 19:12

Yeah (laughs). young professionals just starting out, it can be very difficult to allow yourself to fail, because you're not sure how that's going to be taken. And so upfront, allowing for that failure will allow them to actually learn. And then the second part of that is providing effective feedback. So it's not enough to just say, that's okay, you can send a poor email and that you know, you'll be fine. You have to allow them to make that mistake and then say, Okay, this is the best way to go about it, and provide them that good feedback so that they can grow. The fourth one is creating space for creativity and ownership. So I think oftentimes in companies we see that young folks are just not taken quite as seriously, their ideas, or they're not given the responsibility of somebody that is maybe more senior in that organization, but allowing for them to present their new ideas, and then running with them, at least for a certain amount of time, will teach them great skills and leadership and project management. And bonus, you will probably get a great new innovative idea. Yeah (laughs).

Sam Collins: 20:32

I had a student recently come to me, who went through the program, it has been a mentor for the past couple of years. And she was like, you know, I've noticed this thing in the program that I think I can make better. And she laid out the things that she thought would be good to change. And I said, Okay, this is why we've made these decisions. This is why we run it this way. This is what went into it. But I love that you have a new idea. So why don't you take a small group, and implement your changes, and then let me know how it goes. And so that we can see, Okay, which one's going to be more effective. So allowing her to voice that idea, explain why things are done the way that they are, so that she can get that perspective. And then allowing her to go out and actually make

Tara Thurber: 21:11

Yeah. her own adjustments, see how it works. And I haven't seen the results yet. But the hope is that I will either she will have learned why this thing works. And she's been able to build those skills, or I got some great adjustments for the program that are going to be effective in the future. Wow.

Sam Collins: 21:31

That can be used in really any context. And then my last tip is to be consistent. So it's not enough to just say, Okay, we're going to do a couple of lunch and learns, because we've listened to this podcast, and they say, We should've developed young talent. You have to set things up so that you're being

Tara Thurber: 21:45

Right (laughs). you're developing them over a long period of time, they should have consistent access to development resources, to mentors, to their peers, so that they can learn, it isn't enough to just do it for their first year on, they're going to be young professionals for a while, and there's going to be lots of things that they can learn. So if you're going to implement something, be consistent about it, and dedicate yourself to it, not only will it be helpful for your young professionals, but it will also mean that you aren't wasting resources, you won't see a return on any sort of time or financial investment if you only do it a couple of times. But if you're consistent about it, you're going to see great progress in your young professionals, and you're going to see them stay on, which is exactly what you want organizations to do is to retain good talent. Right. That's phenomenal. And it's almost like it's that cultivation and growth that. Sure, maybe you start with a group, but for consistency, allowing that to grow with your business, it's only going to make your business stronger with the types of employees that you have, because you're starting at the roots, right? And you're you're forming that - I keep wanting to go back to like gardening and planting a seed but it you know, you get the idea there that that's what you want to be doing with the young professionals that are coming in, because you want that long lasting relationship, you want that long lasting employee to be there, to not only grow for themselves, but to help that company. And I absolutely love that idea. I think it's a lot of businesses will say that there's no time for it, but you know what, ask a young professional to set it up and then you're getting two for one right there. And you're giving a seed to a young professional to figure it out and bring that forward and pay it forward. So Sam, this is unbelievable! I am I'm so happy that we were able to sit and speak with you today and learn so much about EWAAB and everything that you're doing for these young professionals. It's phenomenal. And so happy to have you on today.

Sam Collins: 24:05

Yes, thank you for having me. I hope that everybody had a chance to learn something and certainly go and check out EWAAB.

Tara Thurber: 24:12

Yay! Awesome. All right, well, and then there are some things coming up too, in 2024. So we'll make sure to post everything about EWAAB when we post up our podcast and hopefully we can get some more following for things to come in 2024

Sam Collins: 24:30

Yes, exactly.

Tara Thurber: 24:32

All right. Great. Thanks, Sam.

Sam Collins: 24:34

Thank you.

Tara Thurber: 24:36

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