Join the Talent Revolution

How did you decide on what career to pursue? Did you think it through or was it just a happy accident, a matter of chance or a choice that you have now learnt to tolerate because it pays for your current lifestyle. Are you the person who now believes, that everyone doesn’t HAVE to just absolutely jump up with joy at going to work on a Monday morning. Let us face it – most people don’t. Not unless you are wildly in love with your work and can’t stop thinking about the ten different things to do at work that will give you a high. Even if the honest answer to your career lifestyle is “serendipity”, remember you are spending several years of your life pursuing what may have been a chance outcome. You hope like hell you will like it. As an HR person, ever so often I meet people who are stuck in a job that they hate with all they have. Imagine what it would do to pursue a career designed around what they are passionate about. Careers and lives need to be in synch with each other. Else you are wasting your life and your talent just to earn a living to fund your lifestyle. With shrinking corporate payrolls, more and more people are getting a chance to ask themselves how do I want to use my talent rather than the regular drudgery of how do I stay in job that pays my bills. What should the process of pursuing your passion? I thought of talking to someone who has done this thinking for herself and is now getting others to discover their passion through what she calls the Talent Revolution.

Meet Amanda Hite – Founder, CEO and Change Agent. She runs this cool website called Talent Revolution (TR) that nudges you to really think about what is the Ultimate Career Lifestyle you have always dreamt of having. We got talking about this and that. I started off by asking her what differentiates her company from scores of other firms that do the matchmaking between employers and employees. After all finding great talent is not just about putting up a “Now Hiring” outside your shop.

Amanda Hite: TR’s all about bringing sexy back to corporate thinking and people performance and drastically changing the way business think and behave with talent.  Showing businesses how to get a better Return On Talent. We are super passionate about inspiring talent to live their ultimate career lifestyle.  Living your UCL is about defining your ultimate lifestyle, applying your talents and passion to meaningful work, then creating a detailed plan on how to produce multiple streams of income to support that lifestyle. Most people do the opposite: find a job then live their life around their job.  

Abhijit: Who do you define a high potential/employee? How do you spot high potential people? What makes them high potential? Do you use terms like Top Talent/ High Potential and “A Players” interchangeably? 

Amanda Hite: Besides all that they are basically agents of change, high influencers with the ability to inspire others to action, extremely self aware, push themselves out of their comfort zones constantly to grow, they have a passion to make or create meaning, accountable and focused and has a long list of proven results. 

Abhijit: What do they look for in employers. What is the one thing that employers can provide them to keep them buzzed? Or does it vary for each individual?  

Amanda Hite: They look for things like innovation, transparency and autonomy. Give them a mantra that makes or creates meaning and then unleash them to go after it.  Allow them to fail. 

Abhijit: Why is everyone not a high potential? Can one LEARN to become a high potential person or are we stuck with whatever potential one is born with?  

Amanda Hite: I don’t believe that anyone is born or wants to be a poor performer.  I think your life experiences impact this more than your DNA.    I believe that there are just people who are more self aware, have discovered their talents and the passion that fuels them and those that haven’t.  

Amanda Hite: They may have a better chance of being popular or the cool kid in school but  I don’t believe that extroverts have a better chance of “success” than introverts at all.  

Abhijit: Do high potential people eventually become entrepreneurs or do they chip away in corporations?   

Amanda Hite: I definitely think that we’ll see alot more of them doing their own thing.  Let’s face it corporations aren’t loyal to the employee your career needs to be in your own hands.  Not saying everyone’s made to be an entrepreneur (it takes a special dna!)  but, with jobs scarce more people will be going out there to do their own thing.   There is something liberating about having complete control of your future in the hands of your talent not some crazy boss. 

Abhijit: What do you see as the next big idea for hiring? Using web2.0 for hiring is still not mainstream – why? 

Amanda Hite: Social Recruiting Online and Mobile.   Recruiting great talent is about people networking and building relationships.  Web 2.0 provides so many FREEMIUM platforms to do that it’s nuts not to take advantage of them.  It’s not mainstream because there are thousands of bozo’s in recruiting positions right now that are clueless that’s it’s about relationships.  For them it’s about the process, broadcasting postings and hope to catch a good one.  And companies are scared to get in the game, to lose control, what they don’t realize is, is they already have.

If you want to reach Amanda you can mail her at ahite@talentrevolution.net or connect with her on Twitter  http://twitter.com/sexythinker or Facebook  http://tinyurl.com/cetfk3 or the ever popular Linkedin  http://tinyurl.com/2rlfj3

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