Ahh summertime - time to relax, recharge and most importantly… recruit! During TeamKC’s July Recruiter Roundtable, ideas and conversation were just as hot as the temperature outside. 🔥

Hosted by Junior Achievement of Greater Kansas City, its innovative space was the perfect backdrop for this get-together.

As usual, this group wasn’t afraid to get straight to the hard-hitting topics faced by talent acquisition pros today, including creative talent pipelining strategies, the “missing workforce” and employee engagement.

Creative Talent Pipelining Strategies

Recruiters from a variety of companies and industries have a shared goal - exposing the future workforce to different career opportunities at a younger age, engaging with high school and perhaps even middle school students.

Some KC companies are boosting their pipelining strategies by: 

• Partnering with schools such as Olathe South, Shawnee Mission School District and Kansas City Public Schools to introduce students to career opportunities and recruit students as they near graduation.

• Offering on-the-job-training and tuition reimbursement to help these young professionals reach their dream goals and set them up for long term growth.

There are also a number of regional initiatives built to create collaboration between education and corporate leaders. North Kansas City Schools District’s work-based program, the Real World Learning program through Kauffman and the Lyrik’s Institution are just a few impactful examples.

The Missing Workforce

Attendees then addressed “the missing workforce” made up of the 5.7 million people who have just stopped looking for work due to discrimination, disability, childcare, etc.

This led to a candid conversation surrounding the growing need to give people who have faced adversity a second chance.

There is a fundamental shift in the need to find a perfect candidate to fit the “glass slipper,” vs. investing in hiring a hardworking individual who can either be trained to fulfill the needs of a role or even just accomplish the goals in a different way. Attendees emphasized the importance of having empathy when recruiting now more than ever, because at the end of the day we are all human.

Check out the Workforce Opportunities for Returning Citizens (WORC) program provided by the Chamber of Commerce of Greater KC Foundation.

Employee Engagement

Arguably everyone’s favorite part of the convo was talking about all the cool ways they are working to keep employees engaged! Now it would be a lie if we said that the majority of this topic wasn’t dominated by talk of food… food trucks, catered meals and meal plans, socializing at Chicken N’ Pickle, and the list goes on.

When working remotely, there’s tons of new tech to create connections and collaboration, such as a virtual “water cooler,” Zoom games and meme group chats.

Opportunities to gather at volunteer events and through employee resource groups such as a women’s network and mentorship network foster meaningful engagement as well.

BTW - JAGKC is always looking for corporate teams to volunteer. Reach out to Sara Swearingen at sswearingen@jagkc.org to learn more about volunteer opportunities.

Thank you to the fantastic TeamKC network of recruiters for your engagement and eagerness to connect and collaborate!

Need help getting candidates to fall in love with KC? Reach out to TeamKC to discuss which custom tools and resources can help you.

Special thanks to Junior Achievement of Greater Kansas City for hosting another successful roundtable.