One of the best ways schools can connect their students to post-secondary opportunities is by reframing the conversations they are having with prospective partners. Businesses will derive significant benefits from developing strong relationships with your school, your students and your CTE programs.
Competition for early talent is significant. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, companies of every size and industry, across nearly every state are “facing unprecedented challenges trying to find enough workers to fill open jobs. Right now, the latest data shows that we have 9.5 million job openings in the U.S., but only 6.5 million unemployed workers.”
Students, meanwhile, are considering their plans after high school at a much younger age. Some 30% of those enrolled in Connections Academy schools, tuition-free, online public schools for grades K-12, begin thinking about their careers in the 6th to 8th grade.
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And they have many more options now—from taking advanced courses to participating in dual degree programs and earning micro-credentials, all that will save them time and money in college and career.
These facts put school leaders in the perfect position to help employers understand how to attract the next generation utilizing an early talent playbook:
1. Understand the types of businesses that make good school career program partners.
Look at what companies are pillars in the community and what industries they represent. This could be a big manufacturing employer, tech company or municipalities that provide necessary resources like hospitals, energy companies or government entities.
They always have volume, and often prioritize early talent development because they are usually already out in the community at schools and local events. Don’t forget about the small businesses or startups that often excite and can engage students.
2. Evaluate prospective business partners to make sure they’re a good fit.
Begin by ensuring that the values of potential business partners align with those of your school, as you’ll want your students to be in good environments and engaged with appropriate influencers. Then, identify businesses that have opportunities for employment and advancement. Next, consider whether these companies are in a growing industry and how they are performing.
3. Learn about the priorities of the business.
It’s always important to understand what these companies see as their challenges over the next three-to-five years because the talent pool they’ll need to help develop and execute innovative solutions is sitting in your classrooms right now. Some companies just want to be good community citizens and give back by partnering with schools.
But if their talent strategy aligns with their needs based on market opportunities, then having a good understanding of their future is critical. Don’t just look at the company’s existing job postings; that is only what they need today. You need to know what they need for tomorrow, which is not necessarily what they need today.
4. Position the partnership as more than a sponsorship opportunity.
These early conversations in relationship building should help companies consider your school as a true partner in their talent pipeline, not just a billboard. They should be looking at strengthening their connection to you because they view developing early talent as their secret sauce and a competitive advantage.
This is their opportunity to cultivate and interest students early in their company, so when the young people are ready, as juniors and seniors, their first choice—for jobs, apprenticeships, or internships—is the company they’ve been deeply engaged with throughout their middle and high school years.
5. Focus on the future and relationship building.
What you may find to be a challenge with some employers is their laser focus on solving their immediate needs. You must ensure those employers are focused on tomorrow, too. As a school leader, just like you want to know what skills employers are prioritizing in prospective employees to implement their long-range strategic plans, prospective partners need to understand that the talent sitting in your classrooms is critical to their future.
A question to encourage foundational relationship building is, “How are you cultivating your future talent pool?” Or “How can we best prepare our students to be ready for where your company is heading in the future?” Then you’re in a discussion about “pre-recruitment,” not recruitment. Pre-recruitment is the step organizations take before they begin actively recruiting prospective employees.
6. Consider all the opportunities available for your students.
Often, companies don’t want to engage high school students because of age restrictions around hiring or bringing them into their facilities. Companies can engage with these students through exploration opportunities.
As you’re evaluating the business, take a test run. Think more broadly than having a name brand company set up a booth at your career fair or a CEO speak to the whole school. Ask if they’ll send a representative to your school to speak with students about the available pathways to work at their company.
I often recommend schools prioritize inviting professionals who are early in their career—maybe they’ve graduated from high school or college in the last few years. The goal is to have an employee or leader that has a voice that will resonate with students, as they convey a path that seems attainable for them.
Signal you’re serious by asking about internships, apprenticeships, and mentorships, even though those options are rare for high school students. Their response will tell you how open they are to engaging early talent and whether they’re valued as part of their workforce.
7. Establish ways of working, processes, goals, and outcomes.
Once you’ve landed the partnership, one of the early action items should be to determine a check-in cadence and timeline of how often and when you will engage. You should also work together to determine the goals and outcomes that each of you wants at the end of the year. Everyone should be clear about what success looks like.
Visualize what the headline in the local news will be about your partnership and plan for how you want to tell your impact story. And prioritize quality over quantity. It’s better to have five partnerships with organizations that you’re continuing to build and cultivate than 20 who only hang a banner on the outside of your school for advertisement.
8. Work with the right people.
Often the person the school engages with depends on the size of the company. It could be a plant manager or the head of a hospital. If it’s a small startup company, it could be the CEO.
In general, the person you’re typically going to work with in an average size organization is likely in community engagement, corporate social responsibility, workforce engagement, marketing, or human resources.
9. Check out community colleges.
One great way to learn more about partnerships is to work with the community college in your area. They are always dialed into the local businesses, which look at community colleges as talent pipelines, prioritizing early talent and looking to hire. As the leader of a middle or high school, what you want is for these businesses to understand that they should begin their recruitment process earlier.
Go for the win, which initially might be just introducing students to the organization. Or it might be creating brand awareness that sets the stage for career program development.
When you get companies to begin having beneficial engagement with your school and your students, they’ll start to lean in. They’ll develop creative ways to expand opportunities and remove barriers because their experience with your students is humanized and not transactional. This important shift is key to building a sustainable relationship that results in your students’ successful transition to college and career.
