About the series: We often talk about how Golden Path Solutions and our online platform Compass help drive your future workforce, but how does that really work? How do Compass, our relationship with schools and students, and your employer membership tactically help find your future talent?
This is the first of a two-part series where we break it down for you, first by focusing on Career Profiles and work-based learning (WBL). Next month, we’ll explore best practices for building student connections, including using our employer marketing resources.
Initiating student connections with Career Profiles
Building your future workforce is a long-term process that involves many touchpoints with students – and we’re here to help. Through a series of connections, students can form a long-term relationship with your company by learning about your industry, your careers, and your culture. When you layer in incentives like scholarships, Sponsorships (tuition reimbursement programs), WBLs, and other programs, you can see how your work today can lead to the workforce of tomorrow.
One anchor of this connection-building is the Career Profile.
Career Profiles in Compass are overviews of specific careers at your company, written for high school students. They include a day-in-the-life, required skills, career paths, education requirements, and classes and activities students might be participating in today that indicate they’re a good match. Photos, videos, and links help students picture themselves in those roles.
While a job description seeks to fill a vacancy tomorrow, a Career Profile provides a road map for a high school student to reach that career.
As a Golden Path employer member, you can share as many Career Profiles as you’d like in Compass. Some memberships even include Career Profiles written by our staff. You can feature roles your company is always in need of, new roles that students might not yet understand, a mix of roles that require various levels of education, or any role that is important to highlight for your future. We can help you decide.
Taking the next step with WBL
With the Career Profile as the anchor of your connection-building, we can introduce students to your company and careers through work-based learning (WBL). These experiences include everything from cooperative work experiences to internships and pre-apprenticeships. Employers work in conjunction with schools and students to determine what the experiences will include, and often the WBLs include academic credit towards graduation.
WBLs enable a student to experience a career and your company, while allowing you to connect with a potential future employee and see if they have the skills and personality you are looking for.
You can offer WBLs without an employer membership or a Career Profile (and many employers do!), but it’s all designed to work together to support your future workforce.
How to use these tools for your company
1. Sign in to your Compass account and update your employer information. If you don’t have an account, you can create one and purchase a membership if you’d like. If budget is an issue, you can go with a Basic account that allows you to join the Employer Connections Database to share your company information with schools and post WBL experiences.
2. Use your Golden Path employer membership to create a Career Profile for critical roles at your company and publish them in Compass, sharing it with thousands of students across the region.
3. Include mention of colleges and programs in your Career Profile that your company likes to work with, that provide a solid education for your featured career.
4. In the Career Profile, consider offering a Sponsorship or scholarship to help students pay for the schooling required for that career. In exchange for tuition help, students sign an agreement to work for your company following their postsecondary graduation.
5. Create related WBL experiences, such as an internship or a summer job, that relate to that career, and also publish those in Compass. Link them to your Career Profile.
Based on their Compass student profile, students are matched to your company, Career Profile, and WBLs. They learn about your opportunities and see a clear path to building a connection with you.
Need an example? Read our story about Colton Brown, a 2023 Kindred (ND) High School graduate who participated in a welding WBL experience at Weisgram Metal Fab Inc. in West Fargo, ND, during his senior year. The experience solidified his decision to build a career in welding and gave Weisgram a chance to train up an eager welding student into a full-time employee by the time he graduated. Brown is still happily working at Weisgram.
Stay updated
Watch your email for notifications of new school events, giving you opportunities to meet with students directly. Follow Golden Path on LinkedIn and Facebook to keep up with new initiatives, partnerships, and other resources for helping you build your future workforce.
For more information or help getting started, contact us today.