DEPARTMENT: Economic Development
DEPARTMENT HEAD: Rene Dominguez
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: City-wide
SUBJECT: Update from Tech Bloc’s Chief Technology Recruitment Officer (CTRO) Update
SUMMARY:
Tech Bloc’s Chief Talent Recruitment Officer (CTRO) is a unique initiative that provides a resource to both IT businesses and individuals looking for IT jobs by providing a single point of contact and coordination for workers, employers, and educators. Funds for this initiative have already been approved and appropriated. This presentation will provide the framework and initial plan by the recently hired CTRO, Dax Moreno.
BACKGROUND:
The IT industry in San Antonio is one of the targeted industries for economic and workforce development. This industry provides good jobs and good career pathways for San Antonio residents. To maintain the growth of the IT industry, it is important to understand what the industry needs. One of these needs, communicated through Tech Bloc, is the need to improve the recruitment cycle locally in the IT industry.
There are approximately 1,000 IT-related companies/institutions employing close to 35,000 IT workers in San Antonio. Large employers such as USAA and Rackspace have dedicated talent recruitment and hiring professionals on staff. However, the great majority of small-to-mid-sized technology companies lack access to these types of professional recruitment resources, relying instead on personal/professional networks, job boards, and/or expensive, one-off headhunter type services. Meanwhile, regional IT workers or those interested in access to IT-related career fields lack a central location for job listings, placement services, and/or training and scholarship opportunities. The internet is an inefficient or un-optimized labor education, recruitment and placement market in San Antonio.
To create a healthy ecosystem for IT talent, San Antonio will need to grow its current labor market through training and recruitment, while fostering more efficient systems to facilitate job matches for often highly specialized technology workers. Tech Bloc has organized to support and fund a Chief Talent and Recruitment Officer (CTRO) and are partnering with the City of San Antonio and Bexar County for seed funding to launch the program. This partnership aligns with recent efforts with SA Works to interact directly with industry.
A central clearinghouse for recruitment, training guidance and job placement will be led by the CTRO. The CTRO has been hired by Tech Bloc, an IT industry collaborative. This qualified and experienced individual will serve as a professional recruiter for the local IT ecosystem, especially the many mid-to-small-sized tech companies across San Antonio who lack dedicated staff to perform this function and a point of coordination between the City of San Antonio, SA Works and other workforce intermediaries.
The CTRO will help unify and better empower the currently fractured and uncoordinated IT talent recruitment, training, job search, and hiring ecosystem across the San Antonio region. The CTRO’s office and online community engagement assets will be a single-point-of-contact and coordination for 1) individuals seeking IT training and/or job placement, 2) employers searching for IT workers with general or highly-specific technical skills, and 3) industry efforts to recruit and retain more IT talent to San Antonio.
The CTRO will also be establishing a data management system and website to track key performance indicators such as businesses served and IT professionals placed as outlined in the agreement that will continue to be refined as more information is collected.
ISSUE:
The CTRO initiative was approved and allocated during the budget process. This presentation serves to meet the terms of the agreement by introducing the hired CTRO and presenting the first phase of the execution plan to secure the first payment in the amount of $75,000. A second payment of $75,000 and will be issued upon launch of the job matching information system and submission of the final Key Performance Indicator (KPI) report.
RECOMMENDATION:
This item is a staff briefing and requires no recommendation.