Progress as easy as ABC

By SELWYN PARKER

Hand on heart, are you an A player? If not, your career prospects aren't brilliant. Not hopeless necessarily, but not brilliant.

An ominous trend in the United States - from where we inherit so many of our management trends - is the classification of prospective employees into A, B, C and, heaven forbid, D players.

The best companies put applicants through numbingly thorough processes that are designed to reveal every chink in the candidates' personality and employment record.

The purpose is to winkle out anybody below A category.

Failing an adequate supply of A players, they will take B or even C players - provided they can be coached up to A standard. If they can't, they may be moved.

It is, as a consultant notes, a matter of "continual, thorough, unvarnished evaluations" in which people are told where they stand, not once but repeatedly.

In the A player employment market, you can't hide.

Even former A players are reclassified as B players, and are treated accordingly.

On the other hand, A players reap the rewards. As Bonnie Maitlen points out in the accompanying article, you have to "manage your talent."

* Selwyn Parker is available at wordz@xtra.co.nz