This is the last in a series of four articles on building successful careers networks. In the first article in this series we looked at the role of professional associations, in the second article in this series, we looked at the pre planning that is necessary before contacting employers, that is working out what you want from them and what is available locally to support your CEIAG learning outcomes. The third article looked at your pre engagement activity and the start of evaluation. Today we look at building and maintaining those relationships and keep your (old fashioned term incoming) rolodex (For millenials think contacts list) full and populated with people who are keen to help you.

How to build and maintain relationships that flourish

Keep in touch, but don’t make it time consuming for your or your employer,

• Monthly: short newsletter to partners (1 page), highlight successes, upcoming dates, one partner spotlight. If you have access to admin support use them to help compile this or use AI.

  • Tag all employer engagement activity reports in your school news letter as ‘EmployerEngagement’

  • Feed in a command such as ‘Compile a newsletter of all the ‘EmployerEngagements’ that have happened in the last term from (insert school website)

  • Add in a bit of data from your evaluations or even a few quotes from pupils.

  • Use Canva or a similar programme to design a standard newsletter design and add the text to the design template. (There’s a simple editable Word template that is downloadable for paying subscribers)

  • Send it out to all your employers with a covering thank you for your time, look what a difference you’re making email.

• Quarterly or termly: invite partners to a short feedback session (virtual) or coffee morning. Alternatively a business breakfast usually means an early start for you but for the price of catering a few cups of tea and coffee and a few pastries, it’s a good way to keep in touch and build rapport.

• Annual: recognition event (in person or virtual), certificates, social media thank you.

Ongoing touchpoints

• After every activity: thank you email within 48 hours with photos (if you have consent to share) and impact notes.

• Every 3 months: short check-in call or email: “Looking ahead we need… and never forget “Can we support you?”

• Keep a simple calendar of partner anniversaries or recruitment cycles to help you to time when you ask for support. Try to time requests for support in advance and for mutually doable times.

Why it matters

• Regular, value-added contact prevents partners from drifting away and forgetting about you. PLUS it keeps you in their mind for if they have opportunities that would be useful for you and your students.

Adding value to partners (ongoing)

Employer engagement can’t be a one way street. Bigger companies often have community engagement policies and systems which necesitate them engaging in the community to ‘do good’ (AKA Corporate Responsibility Programmes) However, medium and smaller companies won’t usually have that and will need a ‘little sweetener’ to help them see it’s worth their while. What you can offer:-

• Promote them on school channels. E.G. social media ‘shout outs’ to thank them on school social media, newsletters etc.

• Offer data/impact: short anonymised student outcomes from their sessions which can be used in their social media or advertising to show their company in a good light.

• Invite them to network with other local employers.

Why it matters

• Relationships are two-way. streets When partners get tangible benefit, they stay engaged.

Use simple systems to manage relationships (start small)

Options

• Start with a shared Google Sheet or Airtable. Columns: contact, role, last contact date, commitment, next action, notes. (The second article in this series provided a ready made Google Sheet for paid subscribers to edit and use.

• When volume grows, move to a simple CRM (HubSpot free tier or similar).

Essential fields

• Engagement type, preferred contact person, safeguarding status, availability windows, referral source, alumni flag.

Why it matters

Without a reliable record you’ll ask the same question twice and lose trust.

Scale, diversify and embed

By now, if you’ve followed my suggestions, you’ll probably have a small select band of employers and training providers. you’ve worked out what tends to work well and what doesn’t. What is the next step? Here are a few ways you can move your network forward:-

• Expand your network by targeting underrepresented sectors and diversity of roles. Think SMART goals. ‘I need to look for 3 or 4 science type employers in time for the careers fair’ or ‘I need to find some employers for travel and tourism and health and beauty by the end of the year’ is much more achievable than “I want 30 more employers by the year end”

• Recruit alumni and parents as a stable pipeline.

• Embed employer engagement into curriculum planning and departmental schemes of work.

• Secure senior leadership buy-in and a small budget for coordination and thank-you events. If they need any encouragement, look at my article on linking CEIAG to attendance.

Why it matters

• Embedding makes employer engagement routine rather than ad hoc.

Measure impact (every term)

Try not to change your impact measurement metrics frequently. Keeping them consistent helps you to build systems and saves time. It also shows progress.

Some ideas for KPIs to track

• Total active employer partners.

• Employer encounters per student per year.

• % of partners who return next term/year.

• Student reported usefulness (survey).

• Number of employer-led curriculum links.

Use results to:

• Improve tone and pitch of materials.

• Reallocate time to high-impact activities.

• Make the case for more resource.

A Reminder:- Safeguarding and legal essentials

• Confirm DBS/ID requirements and who accompanies employers in school.

• Have signed MOUs or simple agreements for each partner.

• Ensure GDPR compliance: consent for photos, data sharing limited and anonymised.

• Ensure insurance and workplace visit risk assessments are in place.

Paid subscribers have access to both the fully editable Word document files mentioned in this article and the downloads from previous articles in this series.

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