This was an interesting evening: in the IBM Amsterdam Forum we hosted an evening course for 16 young people, age range 15 to 25 years to help them to increase their job chances. The IBM evening course on “leadership” is one of a series of lectures and workshops presented by Amsterdam based companies like ING bank, Boer& Croon, Accenture, and Randstad to help these young people to find a job. It is based on the US founded project Track the Talent and organised by Hart voor Amsterdam.

It is hard to predict the effect of these evening, what can we do to inspire them? What really appeals to the way of thinking and behaviour? What works and what doesn’t work. Usually I give an introduction on working at IBM, working in science, working in an office environment in general and after a quick tour through the office we do some role plays with Marc, who is a professional performer to practise difficult situations like applying for a job, feedback on other people’s behaviour etc. Tonight’s class was not the most responsive one we’ve seen and than these are energy consuming events with mixed feelings. But this was an exception; most youngsters are motivated and eager to learn, those evenings give us new energy. Looking back after 3 years Track the Talent I remember many of the students and specially the ones who were successful in the quest for a job.