Type ‘Talent Management’ into Google and one of the things you’ll find is an array of weird and wonderful diagrams charting the component parts of what constitutes talent.

If that sentence seems a bit vague then welcome to the conundrum, what exactly is talent? Who has it? How can organisations get it and benefit from it?

Being on the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme I’m afforded many opportunities for my ‘talent’ to develop. Since my last blog I’ve been on Action Learning (playfully known to some as ‘Group Therapy’), played spectator to a Board Meeting, had a Performance Review, been to an Emerging Leaders Network event, and attended BPP to be taught about Enterprise Operations.

Still, it’s nice to know that I’ll never be as talented as Kseniya Simonova...my sand castles aren’t even that great.

So what if you don’t have the artistic dexterity to work wonders with any given material, or heaven forbid, you don’t have the good luck to get onto a graduate training scheme? I know a few graduates from my university in that position.

Should they be worried that they can’t get onto these graduate programs? Part of me does wonder what value the scheme adds.

As part of my internship with IBM I had the chance to work under the Strategy and Transformation Director for three months in the summer. He was a great guy and just before I left he told me that he’d worked his way up from the ground floor.

The Finance Director at the PCT was telling me a similar story only a few weeks ago.

So talent management isn’t just something your organisation will do on your behalf, it’s something you’ve got to take ownership of yourself...one aspect is becoming professionally qualified, but what else do you bring to the party?

Speaking of which, if you think you have what it takes to be part of the new wave of student bloggers on CIMA, make sure you apply by Friday 12th March.