Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership

In case you didn’t hear about it, college football powerhouse Alabama recently offered a scholarship to eighth-grade football player Dylan Moses and LSU offered a scholarship to a ninth grader. Before you react in shock as a parent might, consider the fact that teenage talent may be the last remaining untapped corporate recruiting pool.

Most corporate recruiting leaders wear blinders that prevent them from even considering recruiting top high school and non-degreed talent into their professional positions. Not every recruiting leader has a fear of recruiting teenagers, however. In fact the “early-age talent” benchmark recruiting standard was set a long time ago by sports recruiters.

It’s well-known that NBA basketball has prospered as a result of hiring right-out-of-high school talent like LeBron, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, and Kobe Bryant who quickly proved themselves. In the corporate world, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and Microsoft are leaders in teenage recruiting (Microsoft attempted to recruit Mark Zuckerberg after he created his Synapse program in high school). Many corporate recruiters and managers will immediately reject the concept of recruiting high school talent, but such an old-fashioned snap judgment could be costing their firms millions of dollars.

Not just athletes but talent in many different technical disciplines are developing much earlier than they used to. Perhaps the best recent example is when Yahoo acquired the mobile website Summly from a 17-year-old tech whiz for $30 million. The firm’s owner, Nick D’Aloisio, who barely had a high school diploma, was asked to stay on and work for Yahoo. Read More »