SPARTA: Equity Translates into Meaningful Opportunity

Published on 10 October 2023 at 19:01

Hear me out. With the aim of addressing the issue of limited access to finance as a career option, this proposal outlines a prospective apprenticeship program that would engage both educational institutions and firms within the financial services industry to provide young professionals with valuable hands-on working experience while contributing resources to smaller firms.

Although 70% of Fortune 500 companies have mentorship programs, small enterprises and boutique firms often lack adequate resources to provide such opportunities. Smaller organizations are typically most in need of human capital, while program participants potentially have more valuable experience to gain from less bureaucratic organizations. 

Apprenticeship programs are incredibly effective methods of developing skills for aspiring professionals and are incredibly beneficial to the organizations which offer these opportunities. Unfortunately, due to the value of hands-on experience and the prestige of certain companies, the competition for apprenticeship programs can be quite fierce. 

In the modern era of AI-powered hiring, there are even more hoops students are now expected to jump through in order to garner even the slightest consideration for highly competitive opportunities such as apprenticeship programs. Using artificial intelligence to sort through and rank resumes has recently become a commonly utilized practice for companies to save time during hiring. Without the valuable experience apprenticeship programs provide, many students fail to be considered for positions they are otherwise qualified to fill because their skills have not been developed in a hands-on environment. Without checking certain boxes, most resumes are sorted straight to the bottom of a pile without deliberation.

The quintessential internship-to-firm pipeline has become outdated and ineffective in maintaining constriction within the financial services industry. Mentorship has always been effective with regard to instilling valuable information within and thus preparing students for careers in their chosen fields. However, graduating students are forced to compete for an unnecessarily limited number of opportunities within financial services, often without receiving the relevant guidance or support to make the best use of their knowledge. 

Without access to quality internships or apprenticeships, young professionals struggle to find their footing during their most valuable years in the labor force. University departments and career offices once provided reliable access to such opportunities, unfortunately, this is no longer a reliable or effective method of discovery. Today, graduating students must either be the best of the best or they must personally know the best of the best in order to be considered for desirable positions. 

Our proposed solution to this issue is a third-party program called Sparta. With the Sparta program, we can effectively expand education and employment in the financial services industry, ensuring the industry workforce is equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to provide valuable labor and ultimately succeed in their careers. Larger firms that are fortified already with adequate resources to provide mentorship opportunities may always hold a certain prestige in the industry, however, such firms may not in actuality make use of the apprentices at their disposal in the same manner as say, a boutique firm would. 

The Sparta program not only offers a range of benefits to students and universities but also to firms who choose to participate. Students will have access to quality mentors, either volunteers from firms, professors from participating institutions, paid talent, retired financiers, etc. On the other hand, firms that choose to participate are likely to experience an increase in both productivity and profitability.

Apprenticeship programs have been proven to effectively increase employee retention and attendance while also improving relations between employees and their superiors. According to recent data, 67% of firms who invested in mentorship programs saw an increase in productivity, and 55% of mentor-offering firms saw an improvement in profitability as well. Additionally, the Harvard Business Review found that CEOs who have received some form of mentorship make better decisions and help their organizations to avoid costly mistakes. 

Apprenticeship-style programs set participants up for successful careers while participating organizations gain access to skilled labor without the costly investment of recruiting and training programs. Universities and institutions that participate in Sparta may benefit from improving their reputation and prestige by proving they are committed to the career success of their student body while providing firms with the opportunity to recruit and develop a highly skilled workforce that helps to grow their business.

The proposed Sparta program for mentorship and apprenticeship will provide students with the integral skills and experience for guaranteed success in the finance industry while also providing access to participating firms with a pool of talented young professionals. By bringing universities and firms together, we aim to create accessible and equitable mentorship opportunities for aspiring professionals. Just a thought.

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