|
The 4 areas Job Developers need to focus on to achieve long-term employment outcomes
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
.
While job development was only a small part of my first job in the career development sector, it encompassed an entire day each week. Working in a youth employment centre, my job involved some case management and facilitation but every Wednesday, I was to go out and meet with employers.
.
I’ll acknowledge my training was somewhat sparce. I was instructed to meet with employers, tell them about our program and the clients I was working with. I was told, whenever possible encourage them to hire one of our clients, aged 15 to 24, under the Canadian Job Opportunities for Youth wage subsidy.
.
I would faithfully discharge these responsibilities each week, compiling a list of the employers I met with which we would submit along with our monthly report to Service Canada. And while my job development activities would get praise from both my employer and our funder, in retrospect, I see a number of flaws with my approach.
.
These are a few of the challenges I recall:
- While I was contacting employers every week, I didn’t really go out of my way to build relationships. It was very much passive marketing.
- My weekly schedule didn’t accommodate getting involved with business organizations and other networking.
- I put little though into the psychology or motivations of local employers.
- My marketing approach was scatter-shot at best, connecting with the most visible employers rather than the those that best reflected the community or the jobs our clients were interested in.
- We never measured our success. Could my approach have been improved to produce stronger employer outcomes?
- I was never able to articulate the benefits of working with our employment centre beyond the financial benefits of wage subsidy.
- While we did collect employer data, we never leveraged it to better inform our clients, develop marketing strategies or create a framework for sharing labour market information.
.
True, this was more than 20 years ago and I’m certain the practice of job development and employer engagement has improved significantly in the years since then. Employer priorities have changed, database options are far better and job developers are significantly better trained today.
.
This said, funding for career development organizations has also changed and is changing. Organizations are not only measured by service utilization and employment outcomes, but this now makes up an important consideration as to which organizations are selected for contracts and projects.
.
We can talk about government having a greater focus on ‘fee-for-service’ but in truth this is a much greater focus on accountability.
.
When we launched the Canadian Job Development Network in 2023, my focus was on providing job developers with tools they could use to achieve better employment outcomes and to be more effective in connecting with local employers.
.
I observed the professional sales sector has spent decades developing tools and strategies to make sales people more productive. I felt that if job developers could adopt similar approaches, they too might be more successful in achieving employment outcomes. Through these efforts they can also become a stronger, more valuable resource for local employers.
.
With the launch of the Canadian Job Development Network, I also shared my S.T.E.P. approach to job development. This is a four quadrant approach to job development which identifies four areas where job developers and other employer engagement professionals can focus which will make them more successful in achieving employment outcomes.
.
These quadrants include: Strategy (S); Training (T); Expertise (E); and Performance (P). The following summarizes each of these areas of competence.
.
STRATEGY: The employers we choose to connect with; our approach to meeting with them; how they reflect our clients or community; and how we grow in relationship with employers is all about strategy.
.
While employers retain the right to choose whom they will hire, choosing which employers to connect with remains one of the most important elements within a job developer’s control.
.
By refining our approach to connecting with an employer and developing a strategy for follow-up, we’re able to build our reputation in the community and become a resource for progressive employers.
.
TRAINING: While training is often associated with the work we do with job seekers, training can be of tremendous value to local employers.
.
Employment standards, workplace safety and inclusive hiring techniques are all areas where we can support local employers who are often too busy running their businesses to undertake progressive hiring approaches.
.
Many employers hire on the fly, have no training in this area and will rarely look at potential candidates who may not seem obvious but could make a great contribution. They will instead focus on the candidates who have the most education, Canadian experience and recent certifications, even though these candidates are often the candidates who ghost employers and will quickly leave to pursue better opportunities.
.
This tunnel-vision approach often overlooks candidates who could be a better addition to their team, but not necessarily the most obvious candidate to invite in for an interview.
.
We want employers to adopt the perspective of considering all candidates who are technically qualified to do the job and then narrow down this list based on personal suitability, team-fit, related-skills and the likelihood of performing well in the role. This takes training whether in the form of formal training or influencing employers through personal meetings.
.
EXPERTISE: Ask yourself, ‘Are you an expert?’ If you are trying to place candidates in a bakery, with a bank or in an I.T. firm, they are expert bakers, financiers and technology professionals. You need to be an expert in job search, retention and recruitment. It is important you think of yourself that way.
.
Yes, you are marketing clients, students and services, but you will know far more about these areas than many employers. As a successful job developer, you need to acquire accumulated knowledge about employment standards, human rights, workplace safety, hiring practices, retention strategies, interviewing, reference checks and diversity, equity and inclusion.
.
You want employers to hire your clients and utilize your services but if you can become a resource employers call upon because they don’t know what to do and they want to draw on your knowledge and experience, you will be in a far better place to have your clients considered for employment. If they trust your insights, they will trust your judgement and by extension the clients and supports you are recommending.
.
PERFORMANCE: We started off talking about accountability. Performance is all about how we measure success in job development. If you are a great success in attending meetings and connecting with employers but none of your clients get hired or retained, you’re not really a successful job developer.
.
And by extension, if your clients are getting hired but keep quitting or getting fired after a month or two, you’re also not succeeding as a job developer.
.
The fundamental difference between job development today and twenty years ago is that you are being measured not only by employment outcomes but sustainable employment outcomes.
.
This requires developing strong relationships with employers, preparing your clients for success and being accountable.
.
For a job developer to be successful today, they need to use their time in the most effective manner possible, prioritize communication, stay on top of the latest recruitment information and measure and celebrate employment success.
.
In all honesty, I’m not personally in love with how employment service delivery is being transformed across Canada. This said, I don’t have a problem with job developers and employment organizations being judged on long-term employment outcomes.
.
If employers are able to secure workers who can make a long-term contribution and job seekers are able to secure employment of at least a year and possibly life-changing employment, I think that is amazing synergy.
.
Most importantly, never lose sight of the role you are playing in job development. You’re not looking for employers to give your clients a chance. Don’t ever believe that. Your clients are capable of making an amazing contribution and employers would be lucky to open their eyes long enough to see it. If you believe it, they’ll believe it.
.
Job development is not easy; it's really difficult. It’s one of the hardest jobs in career development and can sometimes be thankless. Nevertheless, you are changing people’s lives for the better. Let that motivate you the next time you pick up the phone, open an email or pull open the door of a new employer.
.
We’ll be discussing this four-quadrant approach to job development at our #MotivatingMondays meeting of the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday Feb. 10th at 8:30am Pacific; 9:30am Mountain; 10:30am Central; 11:30am Eastern; 12:30pm Atlantic and at 1pm in Newfoundland.
.
On the morning of Monday February 10th 'Click this Link' to join the session LIVE.
| 
