21 May

Outreach and recruitment: Future proofing your talent pipeline

Our second Power of Inclusion seminar of 2021 focused on Outreach and recruitment: Future proofing your talent pipeline. This event was sponsored by Freshfields and we were lucky enough to be joined by some fantastic speakers, who gave insightful and inspiring talks around the theme.

The event began with an introduction from the Lord Mayor Alderman William Russell who discussed the recent high levels of young people who are unemployed and how businesses can look to strengthen their own outreach and recruitment, especially at all stages of the chain.

Sarah Atkinson, the chief executive officer for the Social Mobility Foundation chaired the event and provided an oversight for each speaker.

Resourcing manager Michelle Woods from Grant Thornton took guests through the company’s business process and the areas they looked at in their recruitment to help diversify it. She mentioned it was important to them, to so see how they can select in, rather than out, and gave some helpful advice around the steps they have taken in improving their recruitment. This in turn has helped to see a positive impact of change over the past three years.

“Admitting we have a long way to go can be very powerful’ said Cyrus Pocha from Freshfields, who started his session by reminding everyone there is always more to do. A partner at the firm he discussed how they have adapted their recruitment approach based on their audience, and listened to what potential candidates were telling them, as well as current trainees and associates. This has all helped to inform their recruitment strategy. He finished his session by reminding attendees that businesses must constantly challenge and look beyond where they usually look for their talent.

Simon Reichwald is the strategic lead for talent at MyKindaFuture who help underrepresented talent into work. His presentation told a story on how smart tech can help support businesses in strengthening inclusivity in their pipeline, and that the journey you take young people on makes the most difference in their life. 

Our final speaker was Pete Ward Deputy CEO of Leadership Through Sport and Business who provided a really interesting session on what young people feel when they are looking to start work, their fears and anxieties and how ‘young people want to be good’ in their working environment. The company looks to champion young people for jobs they can do, as Pete mentioned ‘invisible lives not fully lived are really hard to quantify’. 

The seminar finished with a Q&A session addressing questions from the attendees including questions around contextualised recruitment, how tech can be used in a positive way and also how to help ensure those from lower social economic backgrounds can progress up the talent pipeline.

Our next event is on the 15^th June which is entitled Culture and belonging: The power of storytelling and is sponsored by Standard Chartered. You can find all the details here