Employer Roundtable: Driving Impact with Virtual Work Experience

Virtual Work Experience (VWEX) is a powerful tool for engaging early talent and building a sustainable talent pipeline. But designing a VWEX programme that goes beyond simply ticking boxes and genuinely provides value to both students and employers can be challenging.

In this Virtual Roundtable, we will dive deep into how employers can optimise their VWEX strategy, ensuring they not only create an engaging experience but also meet the Gatsby Benchmarks, enhance their social value impact, and demonstrate clear ROI.

Join us for this insight-packed session, where we’ll explore:

What Makes a High-Impact VWEX Programme?

Learn how to design a VWEX programme that meets the Gatsby Benchmarks, especially around employer engagement and quality of experiences.

Explore how you can integrate interactive elements and live content to ensure engagement and make the experience more meaningful for participants.

Timing and Flexibility: When is the Right Time for VWEX?

Understand how to schedule VWEX to align with both academic calendars and your recruitment needs, while considering inclusivity and access for diverse groups of young people.

Discuss how to make VWEX flexible, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, to increase access and opportunity.

Incentivising Participation: Rewards and Fast-Tracking Candidates

Explore how rewards (e.g., certificates, fast-track applications) can boost engagement and drive long-term benefits such as a diverse, high-quality talent pipeline.

Ensure your incentives align with social value goals, such as pathways to apprenticeships or career opportunities for underrepresented groups.

Measuring Success: Tracking ROI and Long-Term Impact

Identify the key metrics that matter: participation rates, feedback quality, diversity outcomes, and long-term career progression.

Learn how to measure social value and how VWEX can contribute to meeting the Gatsby Benchmarks around work experience delivery.

Overcoming Challenges: Engaging Participants and Securing Internal Buy-In

Tackle common barriers such as student engagement, balancing digital access, and securing internal buy-in for your VWEX programme.

Gain insights into aligning your VWEX programme with both company objectives and wider industry standards, including the Gatsby Benchmarks and social value goals.

Why Attend?

This Virtual Roundtable offers an exclusive opportunity for employers to:

Gain insights from industry leaders on creating a high-impact, scalable VWEX programme that supports both business objectives and meets the Gatsby Benchmarks.

Discuss how to measure the long-term success and ROI of VWEX, with a specific focus on social value and diversity.

Explore how VWEX can help you build a more inclusive talent pipeline and ensure your recruitment strategy is future-proofed and aligned with the evolving expectations of candidates and regulators.

Who Should Attend?

Employers looking to optimise their early talent recruitment strategy.

HR and recruitment professionals responsible for delivering work experience and apprenticeship programmes.

Organisations aiming to meet the Gatsby Benchmarks and demonstrate social value through their recruitment efforts.

Where innovation meets collaboration

Our monthly virtual Roundtable sessions bring together thought leaders in Early Talent Recruitment. Together, we explore strategies and solutions that empower organisations and unlock the full potential of emerging talent.

Now in our fifth year, the Roundtable community has over 1,000 members from over 500 companies. From candidate attraction and engagement to refining assessment and onboarding, we cover it all. These sessions aren’t just about sharing knowledge – they’re about building connections and fostering innovation.

The facilitators

Christos Orthodoxou: The session will be led by Christos Orthodoxou, Director of Innovation at TheTalentPeople and Founder of Class Careers. Christos has previously written as a guest writer on apprenticeships for The Recruiting Times and presented at conferences including the ISE Annual Recruitment Conference, National Career Guidance Show, ISE School Leaver Conference and BFI Apprenticeships Conference.

David Allison: David is the Co-Founder and CEO of GetMyFirstJob Limited. David has served as a Trustee / NED of NCFE, one of the UK’s leading awarding organisations, and was designated a National Leader of Governance in 2014 following his work with schools. He is passionate about improving access to opportunities for young people and helping businesses access the next generation of talent.

Who the event is for: The session is for all those involved in early careers from employers such as:

• Heads of Early Careers
• Early Careers Managers
• Heads of Apprenticeships
• Heads of Diversity and Inclusion
• Diversity and Inclusion Managers

"I found it very refreshing to be able to share/listen and most importantly take away nuggets of great practice from other areas of business. Additionally, it was good to hear that as a public sector organisation, other areas of the private sector were having the same issues/concerns regarding candidate onboarding/virtual remedies and practices."

Sophie Sterling, MET Police

“The employer roundtables are a great way for like-minded organisations to share best practices, experience and ideas with the aim of creating meaningful school outreach, employability and early careers programmes. I really enjoy the discussions and have made some brilliant connections across the group”.

Jade Pearson, Severn Trent

For more information on TheTalentPeople, please visit our website: www.thetalentpeople.co.uk