Several companies insist that you have ‘several years of relevant experience’ before they can entrust you with a job. Several young people have proven how they have this problem upside down.
Sportspersons in their late teens and their early twenties successfully carry the hopes of entire nations on their shoulders. At age 24, Steven Gerrard led Liverpool to their first Champions League win in more than 20 years.
Tech entrepreneurs, most of them in their 20’s and their 30’s, have upended several of the world’s long established industries – hotels, cabs and shopping for instance. when they founded AirBnB in 2008, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky were 27 years old with zero experience in the hospitality business.
The biggest world-wide movement on environmental awareness is now spearheaded by groups of young people who are less than 25 years of age. As of today, Greta Thunberg is all of 17 years of age.
If companies had written job descriptions for these positions, would Gerhard, Gebbia, Chesky or Thunberg have made the cut?
Like pieces of pottery baked in an oven, people often rise to the levels of the challenge presented to them – not the other way around.
Observations 