From MVP to MVP
Your Future Leaders Are Already in the Building
Graduate and early career unemployment has risen, and continues to rise with cost-cutting and increased AI usage often being cited as the cause. But there’s a very real reason why early career roles have to continue existing.
Morally, yes, we need to support the development of emerging talent, but also; practically. Practically we need emerging talent that we can develop if we want to have a sustainable talent pipeline.
There’s a term borrowed from the world of product development that I think deserves a moment in the spotlight when it comes to talent strategy: MVP.
In tech, it stands for Minimum Viable Product; the leanest, most functional version of something that still delivers real value. It’s good enough to ship. Good enough to learn from. Good enough to build on.
And when I think about graduate hiring, I think that framing actually works really well, even if the term “minimum” doesn’t sound great.
Let’s Address the Elephant in the Room
Calling a person a “minimum viable product” could, understandably, raise a few eyebrows. Bear with me here. I think reframing it actually shows something important about how we should think about early talent, and about why the MVP concept is so much more powerful than the name suggests.
In product development, an MVP is a deliberate, strategic choice. You’re releasing something with genuine value, that you intend to grow.
The whole point of an MVP is that it’s the foundation with potential. That’s what a graduate is: someone with real potential.
The Truth About Hiring Graduates
When organisations bring in early talent, we know that a graduate is unlikely to match the output of someone with five or ten years of deliberate, intentional experience in the role.
That’s not a criticism; we should all be aiming to continuously develop and be better than we were when we first joined the workforce. Expertise takes time to build. Judgement is often earned through trial, error, and repetition.
So why hire graduates at all, when you could hire someone who’s already further along that curve? Or, as we’re increasingly hearing, why not use AI instead of an individual in their early career?
Because the question isn’t only who can add the most value right now. It’s who will be shaping this organisation in ten years?
The answer to that question is why it’s so important to invest today.
Graduate hiring is a commitment to building your own talent rather than perpetually buying it in. And organisations that do it well; that don’t just hire early talent but genuinely develop it, create something that you simply can’t easily acquire from a competitor: institutional knowledge, cultural alignment, and leaders who grew up understanding how you work.
But the investment only pays off if you actually invest.
Bringing in graduates and leaving them to figure it out, under-resourcing their onboarding, giving them no mentorship or structured development, and then being quietly disappointed when they don’t perform like veterans?
That’s not a talent strategy.
That’s a missed opportunity dressed up as one. The MVP only becomes something great if you keep building it.
On the Other End: The “Most Valued Player”
The other MVP; this term borrowed from sport, tends to conjure a very specific image. The standout superstar. The one who carries the team. The singular, irreplaceable person whose brilliance lifts everyone around them.
I want to gently push back on that framing, too.
In my experience, organisations don’t succeed because of one Most Valued Player. They succeed because of teams of complementary people and styles.
The way people combine, collaborate, challenge each other’s thinking, and catch each other’s blind spots.
Minimum Viable Product
Someone with genuine potential, ready to learn, grow, contribute and develop into something much bigger.
Most Valued Player
Someone who has developed the confidence, capability, relationships and perspective to create distinctive value.
The superstar who can’t collaborate, can’t develop others, and can’t share credit is unable to make the kind of sustained value that a cohesive, high-functioning team does.
So when I use the term here, I’m not talking about crowning anyone. I’m talking about a stage of professional development; the point at which someone moves from being capable and supported to being autonomous and genuinely additive.
When they’re not just completing tasks but shaping strategy.
The Journey Between the Two MVPs
What does the road actually look like? It’s rarely linear, could be a bit messy, and it looks different in every organisation and for every person.
Broadly speaking, it tends to move through a few phases:
Learning to operate
In the early stages, it’s about building foundations; understanding the business, developing core skills, learning how things actually work (as opposed to how they work in theory).
Building confidence and credibility
This is where early talent starts to find their voice. They’re contributing ideas, not just executing instructions. They’re developing a reputation for reliability, curiosity, and accountability.
Working with increasing autonomy
They need less scaffolding. They’re proactively identifying problems, rather than just solving the ones placed in front of them. Their managers start thinking increasingly of them as a resource.
Adding value that only they can add
This is where people have developed a distinctive combination of knowledge, relationships, and perspective that makes them genuinely hard to replace.
The gap between stage one and stage four is bridged by time, yes, but more importantly, by quality of support, quality of challenge, and of course the quality of opportunity.
Which means there’s a real dual responsibility between the individual and the organisation in development.
What Does This Mean for Leaders?
If you influence how early talent is brought in and developed, I’d encourage you to hold both MVPs in mind at once.
When you hire a graduate, you’re not hiring what they are today. You’re making an educated, informed bet on what they’ll become; and need to make a commitment to play an active role in making that come to life.
The minimum viable product needs a dedicated team behind it. It needs investment, iteration, and people who really believe in what it can grow into.
The return on that investment, when it’s done well, is a workforce full of people who chose to grow with you, who understand your organisation from the inside out, and who will one day be the ones making the same bet on the next generation.
Ready to invest in your future leaders?
Graduate and early careers roles aren’t just about filling today’s vacancies. They’re about building the people, capability and leadership your organisation will need tomorrow.
Let’s talk about how you can build an early careers strategy that turns potential into long-term value.