Meeting the Community’s Needs: The Evolution of County Hiring Events

About the Program

Category: Personnel Management, Employment and Training (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

Traditionally, local governments participate in hiring events that are hosted by external entities. Henrico County flipped the script and implemented hiring events with the community’s needs in mind. Both large-scale and small-scale events have evolved throughout the last four years to highlight career opportunities available in public service and showcase the resources the County has in place to serve the community. Our first hiring event was created to serve the Henrico community directly. Thirty-eight departments attended, sharing information about their open positions and services. Information sessions were provided on how to be successful in our hiring process. Future events grew to include career enrichment information sessions with our Virginia Career Works community partners and position-specific hiring events to respond to critical hiring needs for departments. The Covid crisis challenged us to come up with creative solutions to keep our workforce and community safe while pursuing our outreach efforts in order to continue providing service to our community. These events produced positive outcomes with qualitative and quantitative results. The quantitative results are shown through the number of people hired from these events. The quantitative results are shared from survey results, positive interactions, and feedback from both internal and external stakeholders.