Connecting with your future workforce through tangible experiences is a great way to build relationships and cultivate student interest in the career fields that are important to your company. It’s also a great way to give young people a sense of what the workplace is like and to get them engaged in their career development. For example, experiences like internships are becoming an important part of resumes when it comes to landing a good job. The earlier students can get those experiences the better. Students from middle school through technical college have access to Inspire so you can interact with students at any place on that continuum.

In Inspire Madison Region’s first year, we facilitated nearly 60 Career-based Learning Activities requested by educators and students and fulfilled by the employers who offered them – everything from guest speakers, career fairs, job shadows, internships and more. With many more schools coming on board with Inspire in the 2016-17 school year, we anticipate seeing many more CBLEs being set-up through Inspire.

Here are two ways that you can engage your future workforce by adding CBLEs to your profile.

• Offer Career-based Learning Activities (CBLEs) to students in middle school, high school and college from our Experiential Learning Continuum. Choose from over 30 CBLE options from categories like career awareness, exploration, preparation and training. It’s also a great way to form relationships with students (who may become your future employees) and educators. To activate CBLEs in your profile, click on “Career-based Learning Activities” and then select from the options listed, OR….

• Get Creative. List customized CBLEs with specific details. If your company or organization offers or would like to offer activities with specific details, you can add those in Inspire by clicking on “Career-based Learning Activities” and then “View Participation”. Then click on “Add New Opportunity” and add details like name, specific contact information, locations, dates, time commitment, compensation, deadlines, details, qualifications and instructions. This is a great way to target specific schools, age groups, or students in certain career pathways or programs. It’s also a great way to limit the number of requests you get for popular programs like job shadowing.

As always, if your company feels at any time that you are at capacity for any of the CBLEs you’ve signed up for, you can easily uncheck them from your list and they wont’ show up anymore to students and educators.