Thousands of Calgary students look for work experience annually to fulfill their post-secondary commitments but there are barriers to connecting them with employers.
On March 6 at the Platform Calgary Innovation Centre, TalentED YYC brought together employers, funders and post-secondaries for the inaugural Calgary Talent and Funding Fair. The goal was to bridge the knowledge gap employers may have in finding – and funding – students to help meet both education and employment needs.
Seven Calgary post-secondaries and seven funders participated in the event, and more than 100 different employers joined TalentED YYC for an afternoon of connection, collaboration and discussion.
D’Andre Wilson-Iherjirika, executive director of TalentED YYC, said that quite often the knowledge of these opportunities for both students and employers just isn’t there, and then many find funding students to be a barrier.
“We’re trying to make it easier, especially for small businesses and non-profits to engage in this because it not only benefits the students and benefits those companies,” she said.
“It benefits those organizations to be able to bring student talent into the organization and build the pipeline and grow their organizations organically through this work.”
The afternoon event builds on the TalentED YYC online portal, a place where businesses can post work opportunities, and get find support for the process through TalentED YYC.
Wilson-Iherjirika said that it’s taking their efforts further.
“This is taking it… to that next level where those employers can now connect directly with those post-secondary partners that we’ve been working with and connect directly with those funding delivery partners,” she said.
“It really allows more of that person element they can come out here in person to connect and get information firsthand from all of these different PSI partners and funding partners that we’ve been working with.”
Work experience crucial for student learning and talent pipeline
Derek Lemieux, director of strategic partnerships with Bow Valley College, said that these kinds of student experiences are like having a six- to eight-week job interview.
You get to see if the student is a fit – or not – but it also allows the student to gain a better understanding of the industry and fill in some of the missing soft skills, he said.
“We’ll never be able to recreate the type of settings that these students are going to go to, so it really is critical and really it gives our students a leg up when they go into even another job interview to say, ‘you know what? I’ve been into a company I was successful,” he said.
“I understand how this works, and I’m ready to hit the ground running when I start working for your company.”
Lemieux said that having opportunities like the Talent and Funding Fair were critical to building a strong talent pipeline and giving students valuable work experience. Bow Valley College expects to place 6,000 students this year, with the goal of getting all students placed in work-experience. That would be roughly 16,000, he said.
“What we’ve seen is the ecosystem has really come together to provide all the supports that employers need that students need,” he said.
“Now with Calgary Economic Development, Bow Valley College and the other post secondaries, we’re able to provide that wraparound support to both students but also to employers because navigating some of those processes is not always the clearest and easiest thing to do.”
Wilson-Iherjirika said they’re hoping to track the success of initiatives like this so they can demonstrate the impact in connecting employers and students. They can track the success through their TalentED YYC portal, and they’re exploring tools to track connections through events like the funding fair.
“We want to be able to quantify that a little bit more in terms of how many are actually bringing them on, because I think that’s just such a success story for Calgary as a whole,” she said.
