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Some interesting figures*:

• Baby Boomers are retiring at the rate of one every eight seconds
• The vast majority of organisational leaders are Baby Boomers with the most typical age being 58 years old.
• There are 11% fewer Gen Xers than Baby Boomers
• Generation Y will not be management/leadership material for years to come

Where does this leave us? With an impending and rather large leadership skills gap, the likes of which we have not experienced before. Baby Boomers have a depth of knowledge and skills that only comes with experience and is something that can’t be taught in a classroom.

Will the next generation of CEOs and high level executives be ready to fill these seats that will be opening up over the next decade? Only time will tell, but business needs to prepare by ensuring future leaders are identified, and developed to ensure the best possible chance of success.

So how do we identify and then develop these future leaders? There is no clear cut answer, and in all likelihood it will be a multi-pronged approach that is different for each organisation. Perhaps the old adage ‘it takes one to know one’ rings true, meaning today’s senior executives should be more involved in identifying these talented individuals who will eventually lead the way. But in all likelihood, they will have neither the time, nor the inclination. I mean, who wants to spend time looking for and developing someone who will eventually replace you?

So it seems to me, this rather weighty responsibility is left firmly on the shoulders of HR Managers and practitioners. Are you up to the challenge?

For an in-depth analysis on Next-Gen Leaders, and how to bridge the leadership skills gap, please read a report compiled by a senior researcher with Pearson, who investigated this dilemma more fully and offers some sound advice.

* http://leadershipdevelopmenttrends.com/next-gen-leaders/

Interested in Assessments for Leadership?

Pearson Talent Assessment publishes a range of assessments that are useful in identifying and developing future leaders, such as the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, The Golden Personality Type Profiler and the Raven's Progressive Matrices.

Find out more.

By Andrew Shirlaw | Wednesday June 22nd 2011 - 3:47 pm

Pearson Talent Assessment is very excited to announce the launch of our new online platform. This platform provides users with a state-of-the-art, secure internet-based testing system for the administration and delivery of online assessments.

Combining Pearson’s world-class assessments with this robust online assessment platform
creates a powerful internet-based assessment offering for Pearson clients.

Some features of the new platform include:

• Fast connection speeds
• Extremely low outage times
• Group upload of candidates (no need for manual data input)
• Email template management
• Intuitive and easy to use
• Highly secure environment
• Customisable for your business
• Product resources available for download

If you would like to know more about the new online platform, visit the platform login page, or call us today.

By Andrew Shirlaw | Sunday May 1st 2011 - 11:03 am

With information available at the stroke of a key, are recruiters losing an edge as employers do their own hiring?

A friend of mine was recently contacted by Google regarding a job they had in their Sydney office. She wasn’t looking for a new position, hadn’t registered with a recruiter or uploaded her CV to a job matching site. What she had recently done was joined LinkedIn, and in the blink of an eye she had been contacted by arguably the most powerful online brand in the world, asking her if she was interested in finding out about a new role based in Sydney. Ten years ago, this would have been unheard of, but in the age of social media this shouldn’t come as a surprise when you consider that one in every four and a half minutes spent online, is spent on social media sites.

A recent article in the Australian Financial Review suggested that web profiling by job candidates using self assessment tools is becoming more common and represents an innovative way for job candidates to present their strengths. This seems like a logical trend with generation Y more comfortable with online technologies, and may be a little too comfortable in publishing personal details online. Perhaps this represents an opportunity for recruiters to add value to their database of candidates. Don’t just send employers a CV, send them a personality profile as well.

The question still arises, are recruiters losing ground and losing value when employers can find so much candidate information online?

Deloitte’s 2010 Social Media Report indicates that by using Twitter to promote three of their graduate roles, that all filled in a short time frame, they avoided thousands of dollars in recruiter fees and a search timeline that likely would have spanned months.

With more stories like this emerging, recruiters should take heed and start thinking about how they can differentiate themselves and offer significant value that goes above and beyond the candidate CV.

By Andrew Shirlaw | Sunday April 24th 2011 - 11:18 am