Becoming a mentor: Part 4, social capital vs inclusive recruitment
Its been a while since I last wrote about my mentoring experience and we’re now in a new year, and the final month of CMN.
I want to hold off on reflecting back on what I’ve learnt overall and how I might put that into practice and, for now, focus on one big learning; our industry is over reliant on social capital.
Throughout the course of this programme I’ve found myself talking to people about my experiences and telling the story of CMN and what it’s all about. The one thing I always come back to is a statistic that was shared in session 1: 60% of creative industry jobs are recruited through networks.
When I first heard that stat I was mildly surprised but my first thought was ‘that’s not us, that’s music, fashion and film surely’! However since I heard it I’ve been reflecting on my own practice as a leader of a small design team. This coupled with our recent thinking in the inclusive recruitment space has made me realise how much we rely on networks to fill and find roles. There is an over reliance on our social capital.
Social capital wasn’t a term I had encountered before I started CMN but I like it. It puts a value on a network that I hadn’t considered before. Historically, networking has always been a bit of a chore for me, something I should do (but don’t really want to) and immediately brings up memories of awkward drinks events. Obviously in reality ‘networking’ is much more than that and as I’ve moved through my career I have realised this and started to enjoy meeting people and sharing ideas in a much more organic way. Organic being the key word, I never really realised the value I was building along the way and I took it for granted somewhat. Not everyone has the opportunity or privledge to build this.
Through CMN we are encouraged to introduce our mentees to people in the industry through our networks to broaden their connections and consequently increase their social capital. This is a part of the programme I have really enjoyed. Not only did it give me a chance to feel like I was tangibly adding value to William’s future career path but it gave me a chance to reconnect with people in my own network.
Most importantly it showed me how much needs to change when it comes to recruitment in the creative industries. I wholeheartedly support CMN’s mission to build the networks of young people, there is great research that supports this approach. However, I also feel, as an industry we need to do more. If we’re going to grow the diverse workforce we need to design a world that works better for everyone, we need to shift the heavy reliance on networks and our approach to recruitment.
More to come from Snook on this very topic later this year.
