Luc d'Abadie and Andrew Hewitt always believed Donald Trump would endorse a book they were writing - a guide to help post-secondary students succeed in the world of business.

To keep the faith, the two young Calgarians, among other things, used visualization techniques. They created mock bookcovers and screensavers that said: The Power of Focus for College Students - With a Foreword by Donald Trump.

They also networked. Understanding the principle of six degrees of separation, they got close to the American business icon's people, who read the book and passed on their recommendation to Trump.

This fall, when the book lands in major bookstores across North America, Trump has indeed written the foreword - potentially a great boost for sales.

Photo courtesy of Luc d'Abadie and Andrew Hewitt
Andrew Hewitt, left, and Luc d'Abadie assert in their book The Power of Focus for College Students that post-secondary institutions and parents place too much emphasis on grades.

"We just really believed it would happen," says the 24-year-old d'Abadie. "As hokey as that might sound, it was really an instrumental part of the whole thing."

A nice anecdote, it's also telling. It's the kind of entrepreneurial savvy they talk about in The Power of Focus for College Students. They wrote the book because they feel post-secondary institutions and parents fail their children. The focus is too weighted on grades and filling positions in the workplace, instead of giving students the skills to discover and then pursue careers they're passionate about.

The book was borne out of frustration when d'Abadie and Hewitt compared notes halfway through their university educations. Both were good students, focused on getting top marks. But as they watched older, talented friends graduate with top grades, they noticed a trend. These grads weren't landing their dream jobs.

They found research that consistently showed between 70 and 80 per cent of graduates were not satisfied with their jobs within five years of leaving school. They learned that on a top-20 list of traits that employers seek in a new hire, grades ranked 11th.

And they discovered, as noted in Richard Bolles' What Color Is Your Parachute?, that 80 per cent of jobs are never posted to the public, but are filled through referrals and contacts.

It was a revelation for the pair, and halfway through their education d'Abadie and Hewitt switched gears. They worried less about grades and got involved in school clubs, went on exchanges, did internships, read self-development books and watched their skillsets grow. That awakening became the underlying theme of their book.

"I think that the most important thing is for students to realize they have to take a new approach and open their minds to other opportunities and the importance of them," says 22-year-old Hewitt.

While good grades are important, research shows that first and foremost employers want employees with communication skills, interpersonal ability, integrity, passion and experience, Hewitt says.

"Passion is important. Students need to know the field well enough to have goals within that field and be able to articulate that to the employer."

Experience, too, is critical. Once students have a career aspiration, they must take action by conducting informational interviews, doing internships and finding co-op programs in order to get hands-on experience.

"Informational interviews are a good example of what students should be doing," Hewitt says. "If you think you are interested in journalism, then interview someone and find out what you might like and dislike. Just going through the (post-secondary) program won't tell you that."

Universities also don't teach students how to network, a shortcoming he calls disturbing.

"The fact that it isn't taught in school boggles me," Hewitt says. "Isn't that why we're in school, to increase our chances of success? If that's the case, why wouldn't we be taught how to land jobs by a more successful route?" Hewitt and d'Abadie say parents must support their children and encourage them to fully experience post-secondary life and the opportunities that exist.

Hewitt's epiphany came at a conference for business students in Jasper, where he saw that attendees were involved in clubs, had a clear idea of their future and were having the time of their lives. He also noticed many recruiters from big companies scouting for future employees.

"It gave me that mind shift. It made sense. These students were developing the real-world skills that they'll need on the job. They were working with people, were discovering what interested them. They had mentors around them."

From that day forward, Hewitt changed his life. A marketing major at the University of Lethbridge, he joined clubs, while d'Abadie (math and business) formed two clubs at the University of Waterloo. Instead of getting ready to party on Saturday afternoons, d'Abadie and like-minded friends read self'-development books and sought out mentors. It was those friends who received great job offers six months before graduation, he says.

At the same time, d'Abadie and Hewitt developed the idea for a book. They created a business plan and entered it successfully in competitions at major business schools.

Later they presented it to Health Communications, Inc., publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

The publisher also works with Hewitt's father Les, a business coach and author of The Power of Focus series. He has co-authored the book with his son and d'Abadie.

After its release, the young duo will do one-off speaking events plus a major speaking tour around North American colleges and high schools.

Their business plan is to develop corporate sponsorships to support the tour, taking their message to as many students as possible.

Genuinely excited that they can make a change in people's lives, they believe they can relate to young students.

Both graduated from university in 2004, and like the great majority who enter post-secondary life, they had no idea what they wanted to do.

"Once we got involved in the college experience, we started meeting people," d'Abadie says. "We started getting value from the experience. We did exchanges and gained different cultural experiences."

They learned by trial and error, discovered how to apply their passion, and - as with Donald Trump - they visualized good things happening.

"It was great," d'Abadie says. "It was like we were now in control of our future."

(Mike Dempster can be reached at miked@businessedge.ca)