TalentED YYC portal helping Calgary employers unlock new WIL opportunities
A free online initiative in Calgary that helps small and medium-sized businesses facilitate and fund work-integrated learning opportunities for local post-secondary students has already been used to hire twice as many placements as organizers hoped when they launched two years ago.
With some 20 per cent of the pilot project still remaining – about six months of an initial 30-month term – the TalentED YYC portal expects to keep helping both students and businesses grow by generating meaningful opportunities for education and development through work-integrated learning (WIL).
In fact, TalentED YYC has been such a huge success that the partners behind the project are working to expand its reach beyond Calgary, with the goal of serving the entire province of Alberta.
TalentED YYC is powered by Magnet and uses the Outcome Campus Connect network to help employers connect with students at seven different post-secondary institutions in the Calgary area: Alberta University of the Arts, Ambrose University, Bow Valley College, Mount Royal University, St. Mary’s University, the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, and the University of Calgary.
Project partners also include the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations, and Calgary Economic Development.
“We’re collectively raising the awareness and capacity for work-integrated learning…”
“We’re collectively raising the awareness and the capacity for work-integrated learning across Calgary,” explained D’Andre Wilson-Ihejirika, Executive Director of TalentED YYC. “We really see this as important for the economic growth of the city. It’s about being able to provide more opportunities for students to get meaningful work experiences before they graduate and help them better integrate into the workforce, but also helping small and medium-sized businesses and non-profits find talent to help them scale and grow.”
Employers can use the TalentED YYC portal to get personalized information about funding opportunities for potential student employees, access human resources templates, and to create and post WIL opportunities that are quickly and easily shared with students at some or all of the seven participating post-secondary institutions.
“For the institutions already using (Outcome Campus Connect), they know that if we’re working with employers who post through Outcome Campus Connect, it will show up on their job boards,” Wilson-Iherjirika said. “The institutions have the option to either have the job post automatically approved, or do another round of vetting and say ‘We really want to share this job but maybe this other one isn’t quite the right fit.’”
Besides traditional student work opportunities, such as co-ops and internships, TalentED YYC also facilitates other kinds of WIL including community service learning, boot camps, and hackathons.
“…a one-stop shop for (employers) to get the information they need.”
Over its first two years, TalentED YYC has served over 1,000 Calgary employers, more than 200 of whom eventually posted WIL opportunities through the platform.
“We’ve seen that once employers start providing opportunities, they come back,” Wilson-Ihejirika said, noting that those 200 businesses have combined to create, post, and fill more than 2,000 work-integrated learning opportunities for local students – twice the number organizers expected they’d generate when TalentED YYC first launched.
Among the Calgary employers to benefit from TalentED YYC is Pedesting, makers of a navigation app that helps users avoid barriers and find accessible routes. Before receiving funding to hire two students, CEO and co-founder Nabeel Ramji remembers being skeptical about using resources on short-term roles but his mind was soon changed.
“You’d be surprised at the collaboration and new ideas that come from post-secondary students,” Ramji said. “A fresh perspective is worthwhile and can be quite refreshing. It changes how you view things.”
Besides the obvious advantages of adding young, enthusiastic talent to their teams, Wilson-Ihejirika said the employers who post WIL opportunities through TalentED YYC also benefit from the efficiency the platform provides, dramatically reducing the administrative burdens of hiring.
“When businesses are so small, they don’t have the time to go out and understand all these different WIL programs at all of the different institutions,” she said. “We provide a one-stop shop for them to get the information they need and post their opportunities through the portal in one click, instead of trying to create accounts at seven different post-secondary institutions and post each job seven different times.”
As more and more employers tell the TalentED YYC team how easy it’s been to add student talent through the platform, the impetus to take the project Alberta-wide is growing.
The next step, Wilson-Ihejirika said, will likely be teaming up with a similar portal already operating in Grande Prairie “to create something more cohesive,” while also looking to bring other jurisdictions into the fold. Preliminary discussions have already taken place with communities including Lethbridge and Red Deer.
“The intent was always to start, see if we could make it work in Calgary, and then hope to expand into other areas of the province,” she explained. “We’ve seen some significant success in Calgary, so we’re looking at how we can potentially expand province-wide to support all of Alberta. The tool Magnet has built will allow for other folks to connect into it fairly easily.”
Want to know more? Calgary employers who want to hire a student or get information about funding can access the information they need by visiting the TalentED YYC portal.
