9.6. TARGETING PRE-COLLEGE TEENS

Although companies are most concerned about attracting college, law, M.B.A., and other graduate school students to fill their talent pipelines, a few farsighted recruiters are even reaching out to younger millennials in middle schools and high schools. That's because achievement-oriented millennials are making career plans earlier than ever. Research studies commissioned by Deloitte & Touche revealed that nearly half of 12- to 14-year-old students have started to think seriously about careers. By the time they're 17 or 18, many are locked into a career path. But business careers are seldom on the young millennials' radar screens. To Deloitte's dismay, only 2.3% of 12- to 18-year-olds surveyed showed interest in accounting or consulting. Many teens, the firm found, have reservations about working for big business because they perceive it to be too focused on profits and not enough on people.

Those findings prompted Deloitte to launch a pre-college outreach program that includes a career guidebook and Web site and an online business simulation competition peppered with games and music. In the online business game, high school teams of four students stage a festival that raises virtual money for the United Way's Operation Graduation campaign to encourage people to stay in school. The goal is to teach about business, ethics, money, and decision making, as well as the importance of volunteer activities for charitable organizations. In the end, Deloitte makes donations to the winning schools' local UnitedWay chapters.

The career guidebook includes a few profiles of Deloitte employees, along with people in other occupations, plus a "commercial message" fromW. Stanton Smith, national director of Next Generation Initiatives at Deloitte & Touche. He asks teenagers to consider a career theymay never have imagined: professional auditor. "Boring, you say? Are you sure?" Smith asks. "A lot of careers that don't have television shows or action movies built around them still have plenty to hold your interest (and there is a professional auditor who plays a key role in at least one classic action movie, The Untouchables). . . . This is a profession which makes a difference. Auditors keep the system honest by making sure that individuals and corporations and governments are responsible for the money that passes through their hands."

Deloitte may make some progress in elevating the reputation of the accounting industry. But it will be a hard sell to the millennial generation, which certainly remembers the demise of Enron Corp. and its auditor Arthur Andersen over accounting fraud just a few short years ago.