Reimagining Talent Acquisition: Leveraging Strategic Partnerships & Tech for Career Growth

In this episode of the HR Huddles podcast, Terry Zipper, CEO of Sapient Insights Group, engages in a thoughtful discussion with Kim Sneeder, Managing Director of CareerCircle, about the critical role of lifelong learning and upskilling in the evolving landscape of talent acquisition. Kim shares insights into CareerCircle's mission to connect underrepresented individuals with meaningful job opportunities by leveraging innovative technology and strategic partnerships.

The conversation delves into the origins of CareerCircle, emphasizing its focus on addressing the skills gap by providing a comprehensive view of candidates beyond traditional resumes. Kim highlights the platform's successful integration with nonprofits, upskilling programs, and employers, which has resulted in significant growth—154,000 members and a 72% engagement rate. The discussion also covers the importance of maintaining a strong commitment to community engagement while exploring future expansion opportunities.

For a detailed look at the conversation, the full transcript of the episode is available below. You can also watch the whole thing on Youtube here:

Transcript of the episode:

Kim Sneeder
I said to the team from the very beginning, I said, “If you don't build something of value, they won’t come back.”

Someone recently said to me, Well, and why would they come back after they get a job?” 

And I said,”Because it's about lifelong learning, you know. Our goal was never to support someone in a moment and then disappear out of their lives, you know, we hope to grow with the individual. We hope to make sure we're always helping them upskill.”

Teri Zipper
Welcome to the HR Huddles podcast, presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource for all things HR. It's time to get in the huddle.

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the HR Huddle. I'm your host, Teri Zipper, CEO and Managing Partner at Sapient Insights Group, and I'm back for another exciting episode of HR We Have A Problem. 

This is the show where we like to break down the big and most relevant HR issues of the day. We help you make sense of what they mean for you, and we talk about what you might do about them. 

Joining me today is Kim Sneeder. Kim is the Managing Director for the workforce solutions company CareerCircle. Welcome, Kim. I'm excited to talk to you today.

Kim Sneeder
Thanks, Teri. Really excited to be here.

Teri Zipper
So CareerCircle, I know, helps, or the focus really is on underrepresented individuals finding jobs, reskilling, upskilling, and just really gaining important assistance in the job preparation process, which can be complicated. 

I really want to learn more about how you're doing it, and I know our listeners will want to know more about this, and maybe even how they can get involved. 

So I thought that's what we would do today, is just kind of do a deep dive and talk about some of these things so that people know more about what's going on at CareerCircle. Does that sound like a good plan to you?

Kim Sneeder
Sounds like a great plan. Absolutely.

Teri Zipper
Alright, then let's get into the huddle. So I get press releases from Devon Group, and I saw one a few months back about CareerCircle that really intrigued me. 

I think you guys were just named, like, Fast Company’s annual list of the world's most innovative companies in 2024 alongside big names like Nvidia and OpenAI and, you know, just other companies doing really cool things. 

And I had some serious FOMO. I was like, “how come I don't know who this company is, and I don't know what they do, and why don't I know?” And so, you know, I immediately picked up the phone and called Jean and said, “Hey, can I get Kim on my podcast? Because I'd love to talk about this.” 

So that's kind of how I learned about CareerCircle. And I really thought, you know, we need to get this and we need to talk about it on the show, and people need to know more about what you guys are doing. So tell us a little bit, Kim, about how this all got started.

Kim Sneeder
Absolutely. And Teri, thank you so much for the invitation. I've said for years, since CareerCircle was founded about five years ago, we are so great at doing the work, we haven't been great about telling people about what we do. So what an honor to be here today. 

So I have been with Allegis Group for the past almost 26 years. So that's all of your large staffing: Aerotek, Aston Carter, etc. And about five and a half years ago, the president at the time, Andy Hilger, came to me, and what we were trying to solution was the skills gap. 

There were 85 million people in the Allegis network. But even when I was in operations or national sales, how many times did I hear a recruiter say, “You're not qualified,” then you sort of end the call. Well, there are two problems with that. Number one, it's not super inspiring to the candidate. How do I get qualified? And then number two, we were watching hiring managers wait for months on end, trying to find that perfect candidate, and with the pace of technology, sometimes that's problematic, so we were trying to solve that. 

And it was about three months into building the platform that I called Andy, and I said, “Okay, we're going to do that, but there are a couple things that I want to pivot on.” Number one, getting people upskilled is part of the journey, but life isn't changed, or an organization's not impacted until they actually secure a role. And I said that there's a breakdown in the process, both from a technology perspective and in advocacy. And the second piece was we wanted to serve the communities that were most impacted. So the veteran community, women reentering the workforce, and underrepresented talent. 

I said to Andy, we had the makeup of underrepresented talent in tech. And I said, “Think about this. With a strong platform and with the right technology and with the amazing employers, we can actually change the makeup of underrepresented individuals in tech.” And that's what we set out to do, building this ecosystem within the technology to start to number one solution the skills gap, but also serve our communities, which is really powerful to impact a client's bottom line and your community at the same time.

Teri Zipper
Yeah, I mean, the skills gap is just huge right now. It's been an issue for a long time. And you know, it's not just about knowing what the right skills are. It's about figuring out, how do I get them, and, you know, where can I get them? And so I think that's one of the things that was exciting about what you guys are doing. It's not just about matching people. It's also about helping them gain the skills and look for things that might be a good fit for them if they had certain additional skills.

Kim Sneeder
That's right, because for the candidate, you know, there was a point where there were so many upskilling opportunities, so individuals were taking all of these courses and curriculums, but they didn't always understand. What role does that translate to? Or if I want to be a systems analyst, but I don't have any experience, do I need to start off as customer service, go into Help Desk, etc. Like, what is my career journey that I need? 

And then we were also telling the world, you're more than a resume, but what was TA giving? Resume. So there's a breakdown on both sides, where with organizations with the best intent that wanted to serve their communities. If I'm getting a resume and I don't see a translation in there, oftentimes there was a breakdown in the process right from the beginning.

Teri Zipper
I'm imagining this is changing some of the game in the Talent Acquisition group in terms of how this matching works, and you know how to really go about looking for the right people, because sometimes it's not about matching all the skills, right? You've got to match other components of capability and knowledge and just culture and things like that which can be sometimes much more important than maybe one particular skill.

Kim Sneeder
That's right. I mean, in the technology for their profile, there really is a 360-degree view of the candidate. So it is more than a resume. It's the skills. It's different assessments, trim things like volunteer and passion projects. It is amazing. 

We've had some members where their resume would be pretty small. Maybe they didn't have as much experience, but when you ask them about their passion projects and volunteer works. We had a gentleman recently that built an app. Well, that's pretty important, but that would have gotten lost in a traditional job board – so pulling in all of those dimensions.

Teri Zipper
It's really looking at the full picture. I know we've been working with a company in Raleigh that basically their whole model, they staff their coffee shop with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And so it's really sort of taking and matching the people with your values, right? And, you know, this is the approach. This is what we want to do. This is how we see the world and how we're going to approach it.

Kim Sneeder
That's right. And it's been really interesting, because I think within skills-based hiring, there became this feeling of “it's all entry-level talen”’, and that's simply not the case. I mean, now that we've been on the platform for five and a half years, our average tenure is actually seven years. 

And you also see women reentering the workforce that might have had 10 or 12 years of experience before their career break. And then what would happen? A recruiter would say, "Oh, I need a reference from your last two years." Well, unless I'm going to put a headset on my four-year-old, I can't find that. So does that mean that all of my experience is now discounted? So it's just some of those things that we're having the technology help with so that we don't get, you know, in our own way.

Teri Zipper
You talked about an individual the last time we spoke that basically their background was very different than what the role was asking for, but the things that they had done in their life were just very relevant to the kind of person that this organization was looking for. And I think, you know, that's just so key to this process.

Kim Sneeder
I mean, we had an individual recently that was a barista. And if you Google the attributes of a barista, you see things like customer service, attention to detail, you know, handling multitasking, etc. Well, this individual took the project management certificate and did exceedingly well. The organization that hired her quickly identified her as a top performer. She's now managing five individuals, her salary is 4x what it was a year ago, and literally one of their top performers. 

So again, I mean, there are so many stories, and I think that's what keeps me so excited, because you're talking about generational change in those examples. And if you look at the last couple of years, I've been in the industry for 26 years, and so I feel like I've seen highs, I've seen lows, and the last two years have been tough. 

I saw a statistic recently with one of the organizations I partner with, and they had said staffing was down 13% but last year, our starts increased by 64%. And what's really interesting about that is it wasn't just organizations that said, "I'm focusing on skills-based hiring," or "I'm focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion," it was organizations that wanted top talent, and the talent on the platform simply beat out other talents.

So what you're really saying is you're gaining access to top talent with relevant skills and, oh, by the way, you're also going to get a diverse organization, increased retention, and your culture and loyalty are obviously positively impacted as well.

Teri Zipper
I just think that's so important to the world of work that we live in today. And you know, it's hard to find jobs, especially when you start to see the number of job seekers, you know, going up and the number of job openings going down. And, you know, it's hard for people, no matter what skills they've been developing, to get into and have conversations with people at some of these larger organizations that they might have an interest in doing something for, or could really do big things for them. 

And so I just, I think this is such an important thing for people to focus on. I'd really like to talk a little bit about how you work with partners, like I know you're working with Microsoft and some other organizations – talk a little bit about how that works and how organizations might engage with you guys.

Kim Sneeder
Absolutely, Teri. So within the platform, really envision an ecosystem, because one of the things that was really important to me in my former life, I would lead large national accounts, and one of the things I would hear from clients is to really do this work. Someone was building a relationship with all the nonprofits. And then you had the career readiness, and then you had L&D to make sure their skills were – so you had all of these different departments with a lot of infrastructure trying to solve it. So I thought, “Okay, if we can bring everything into one ecosystem, that's one place for people to go to.” That was the goal. 

So first partners are those nonprofits. There are about 153 nonprofits that have joined the platform. I really call that a transfer of trust. So they're phenomenal at building community, but they need to serve their members with upskilling, with finding jobs, etc. So we bring those individuals in, and we focus on nonprofits that support underrepresented communities, women reentering the workforce, and veterans. 

And the next component is the upskilling. So we partner with organizations like Google. Their Grow with Google program—CareerCircle is actually the platform that all of their graduates are invited to. So Project Management, Data Analyticst, Cybersecurity, IT Support—all of those graduates are coming in. We also work with IBM. We do some work with Microsoft, and then Salesforce as well for the Salesforce certifications. So those amazing technology organizations are helping us train individuals. 

The next piece would be the employers. So employers can join in the platform in a couple of different ways. They can easily share their jobs. So now the 154,000 people that are on the platform can see the jobs and apply right into their ATS. That can always be working in the background, which is a really nice opportunity to gain access to the candidates. Also, the employers can come and join the platform, and they can source, screen, and vet talent right from the platform. They can communicate with the talent. And I always suggest that as well. And then we have a team. So if there are certain requirements that the organization wants us to work on, we can do that. 

And lastly, our virtual career fairs have been wildly effective. The engagement from the members has been over 74% attending, and employers have been blown away. What we do differently is we work with the employers to determine some of the requisitions they might want to have showcased that day. We'll actually, for a couple of weeks leading up, be sourcing and screening on their behalf so that the members know that the employer is going to be there, what they're hiring for, and they can be prepared to get in that booth, to video and to chat with them. 

So lots of different ways to get involved, but I would say your main partners are the nonprofits, because it's so important to me that we honor our promise. We said we would change the makeup of underrepresented individuals in tech. We're going to do that. So we've got to make sure we're serving those communities. Then again, our large technology partners, making sure they have skills that are relevant, being trained by the best of the best, and then making sure that we have that incredible bridge to connect the talent with the client.

Teri Zipper
How often do you do these career fairs? That sounds interesting. I'd love to see one of those.

Kim Sneeder
Yeah. So June 13, we have one coming up that is Tech Her Way, helping really change the makeup of women in tech. And if you look overall, you'll see about 24%, but 36% of our hires have been women. I mean, one thing about CareerCircle, if you want reporting, if you want something measured, it will be done by CareerCircle, because we use that to make sure we're honoring our promises. 

We also have a virtual career fair coming up to support individuals with disabilities. We have one coming up to support veterans, and then we have one that is for all platform members, just supporting underrepresented talent at large. I would say, on average, we do five large virtual career fairs a year, but a lot of organizations will ask us to do one just for them. So if we have a client that says, you know, we want to focus on these skill sets, and we want you to host it just for us, we do that as well.

Teri Zipper
That's awesome. Yeah, that just sounds like it would be something really cool for people to engage in and to get that kind of, you know, activity, and such a high rate of attendance shows how interested these people are and how serious they are about, you know, going back to work or getting work.

Kim Sneeder
Yeah, I mean, our engagement on the platform right now is about 72%, and, you know, I said to the team from the very beginning, I said, “If you don't build something of value, they won’t come back.”

Someone recently said to me, “Why would they come back after they get a job?” 

I said, “Because it's about lifelong learning, you know. But our goal was never to support someone in a moment and then disappear out of their lives, you know, we hope to grow with the individual. We hope to make sure we're always helping them upskill.” Remember, with the pace of technology, again, it's lifelong learning. So it's not we serve you once and then we abandon you.

Teri  Zipper
Yeah.

Kim Sneeder
We really want people coming back and oftentimes to be mentors to someone else.

Teri Zipper
Yeah, does your platform support some mentor capabilities, or is it really just one on one?

Kim Sneeder
Yeah. So a couple of ways, certainly in the up. So for some of our nonprofits, we're actually doing the upskilling. And in those situations, absolutely, we have a mentor community, and one of the big things that we focus on is helping individuals complete the certificate combination of life. And then also imagine if most of your life you were told you weren't qualified, what starts to happen? You start to believe it, right? 

And so a lot of our mentor program and the upskilling is to make sure that the person's belief in themselves mirrors where they really are, versus maybe a story they've told themselves. But at large, on the platform, we said when we built it, we said we want to build a digital platform because we wanted it to scale, but I said it can never forget the beauty of a handwritten thank you card.

And what I meant by that was find ways that the technology would scale and work for individuals who may need a human. At that time, I wanted to be able to insert that human element so at any point, you know, certainly there are resume builders, there's simulated interview prep. They're all the things that over the last 25-26 years, we learned at Allegis – but when they need someone, they can request it right on the platform, and they would get someone on our team immediately there to support them.

Teri Zipper
Talk a little bit about how you're getting out there in the community, like, how do people that you know are in need of support? How do they find out about the platform?

Kim Sneeder
Yeah, again, as I said at the beginning, and I will always speak our truth when we're good at something and when we're not – We were so committed to really focusing on results, to really honoring our promises, that I just don't think we were great at telling people. 

So certainly now, through digital marketing, through social media, following us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, a lot of community members have found us that way. In addition, we have a team at CareerCircle that is reaching out to nonprofits and letting them know that we exist. So we're trying to get the word out that way for the members, so that they are aware.

Teri Zipper
Yeah, and I assume you're still looking for new nonprofits and local markets that could support you guys?

Kim Sneeder
Yes, absolutely. I think that the nonprofit partnerships are one of my favorite and I use that term transfer of trust, because we take that responsibility so seriously within these communities. It is so important that we understand what their community stands for, what's important to them, and then we transfer that trust over to our team, and that the team is working so hard to honor and serve them. So to me, that goes back to honoring our promises. If we say we're going to serve our communities, I always want to make sure that we're out there and we're doing that.

Teri Zipper
I was blown away at the number of people you have on the platform now, like that. That's grown pretty significantly just in the last year, right?

Kim Sneeder
Terry, it has. I mean, I have to laugh, because if you spoke with me five years ago, if 15 people joined the platform in a week, I was the happiest woman on the East Coast, and we could probably extend that to the Midwest and West as well. I mean, I just kept thinking, 15 people are trusting us, and now it's more like 1,500 to 2,000 a week. And so I look at that, and I'm so excited, and that level of responsibility that I felt day one is still so present. 

That's why our team of developers, they're always looking at, what features do we need to support people at scale, but then also, how do we make sure that we meet them when they need us? And it's been interesting to see the engagement continue to climb, and that's why I always measure everything, because again, you make a promise and a commitment you want to make sure you're holding.

Teri Zipper
So Kim, tell me about beyond North America or beyond the US, like, have you moved into any global any areas outside of the US, or, you know, where are you primarily working or finding the most participants at this point?

Kim Sneeder
Absolutely. Right now, Terry, we're just in the US. Certainly big dreams to expand, but for right now, just in the US.

Teri Zipper
Okay, yeah. I mean, this is a need that I'm sure is, is everywhere, but yeah, you got to start somewhere.

Kim Sneeder
Yeah, absolutely, and it's even we started with certain skill sets, because I didn't want to go we didn't want to go too broad, too fast, because again, when you make a commitment to a client and to the member, you want to make sure that you have all the pieces to uphold it. Now we're in a place where we're continuing to scale so many different skill sets.

I think what's interesting is even out of the skill sets, and I continue to be surprised, because if I'm talking to an organization, I know where most of our members skill sets are, etc. However, I will always go on and check and it has been amazing. And in the last 10 examples I can think of that were out of our traditional skill sets that we support, we have fantastic candidates for nine of them. So I think just because with the scale, you're starting to get candidates that are coming outside of even the specific programs that we support.

Teri Zipper
That's great. How does this integrate with organizations and their current talent acquisition solutions, onboarding solutions? How does this sort of connect with that? So that they've got a seamless approach to looking for and finding candidates.

Kim Sneeder
Absolutely. So whether they are using the job board or the virtual career fairs, they're applying directly into their ATS, and typically we'll have a UTM code so we'll know that CareerCircle was the source. The only time you see that different is if they're coming to the platform and they're sourcing, screening, and vetting talent there. At that point, they're then sending them to their ATS, but everything else can be integrated right in so they're going directly to their ATS.

Teri Zipper
That's exciting. I have to imagine that they're, they love this capability and get some real insights into, you know, what the possibilities are, especially as they're trying to grow their business, and look at ways to, you know, bring more people into the organization and have a more diverse workforce.

Kim Sneeder
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you look at our current numbers, we're 4x the makeup of what you see traditionally for underrepresented talent in tech for our hires. But the other piece that's really exciting for organizations is they don't have to go out and build the nonprofit relationships. They don't have to focus on L&D to get the training. They don't have to build infrastructure around all those pieces, because there's one place where they can come and experience all of that and have it streamlined for them.

Teri Zipper
That's a great point. Yeah, because that's a lot of work, a lot of work.

Kim Sneeder
I mean it, it's a lot of work. And you don't just, like, if you think about the nonprofit partnerships, you don't just make one call and immediately have that rapport. And organizations don't have to wait the six or eight months for individuals to get upskilled, because we're always doing that in the background, right?

Teri Zipper
That's great. What so is there anything I haven't asked you about today that you want to make sure you mention?

Kim Sneeder
Yeah, what a great question, Terry. I you know, I think for me, my passion and my belief, as I stated earlier, was that we truly could change the makeup of underrepresented individuals in tech. And there's two things that that really focuses on. 

Number one, for the individual, imagine changing a human's life, imagine the impact on their family and generational change, and then also your community. So that's happening. But I think the other piece that's also really powerful is that organizations are gaining access to top talent. 

You know, I look at our organization, and I think 37% of our team was hired from our own platform, and they're my top 10% performers. And so I just encourage whether it's nonprofits looking for deeper ways to support their community, or technology organizations that want to be a part of the movement, or certainly enterprise organizations that look at things and say, "I believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion. I understand the impact that it can have on my product or service, culture and retention. I want to be a part of that movement."

I just invite anyone to reach out to us, because we can't do it alone, but locking arms with awesome partners, we can change the world with one life.

Teri Zipper
Yeah, I love it. How do people connect with you? Where can they find you? And more information about the program?

Kim Sneeder
So for sure, they can contact me via LinkedIn. I'm always checking there. So that's a great way. And then certainly at https://www.careercircle.com, that's a great way to see what the experience is for our members. And then also as employers, they can request additional information there, as well. 

But I invite everyone please reach out to me on LinkedIn. I have learned so much and grown so much, and apply that to the platform from the amazing subject matter experts and just perspective from other people. So always excited to have conversation.

Teri Zipper
Yeah, thank you, Kim, this has been a great conversation and I'm super excited about just following you guys and seeing how this grows. So thank you. I want to thank our producers, Brand, Method Media Group. I want to thank our marketing team, who will work on getting this out there to you, the audience, and thank you for tuning in. That is all the time we have today for this episode of HR We Have A Problem. If you enjoyed the episode, you can subscribe to it on your favorite podcast app. We’d love it if you'd leave us a review or send us a note, drop us a line in the chat, go on the website, tell us what you want to hear about so we can talk about things that are of interest to you. We will be back in two weeks with another episode of HR. We have a problem. Thanks, everybody.

Kim Sneeder
Thanks, Teri. Thanks, everyone.