History

RealTime Talent is rooted in the work of Minnesota’s Itasca Project

A cross-section of Minnesota leaders from industry, government, education, philanthropy, and community organizations formed the Workforce Alignment Committee to identify solutions to Minnesota’s growing labor force shortage concerns. The Workforce Alignment committee was motivated by conversations with employers who said that they couldn’t find the talent they need and concerns that job seekers continued to struggle to find work. The Workforce Alignment Committee identified a need to work across the sectors that impact supply and demand, engaging academic leaders, faculty, employers, workforce and economic development planners, and career counselors to develop a common understanding of the issues impacting labor force alignment and begin working towards common solutions.

Engaging more than 500 stakeholders

The Workforce Alignment Committee brought together leaders from all sectors to identify potential causes of and remedies for these persistent challenges. Participating in focus groups and surveys, these leaders provided critical insights into the workings of our state’s labor force system. The Committee analyzed multiple programs designed to prepare Minnesota workers for high wage / high demand occupations and best practices were highlighted. Additionally, programs and initiatives across the US were reviewed for possible replication. The Committee put forth two recommendations following these analyses:

Identify a means of providing more immediate, comprehensive, and job specific labor market data to inform service and decision-making across the state.
Identify or form an organization focused solely on labor force alignment with the ability to work across and between the different sectors of the talent ecosystem.

A pilot initiative to explore labor market data tools

Using feedback from this initiative, the committee determined that a year-to-year licensing agreement with Gartner’s TalentNeuron Recruit would provide a short to mid-term solution to the need for a real-time labor market data tool. TalentNeuron Recruit aggregates millions of job postings into easy-to-find and use data sources on most in demand jobs, skills, certifications, and education. The tool also provides four years of aggregate data by region, city, county or town, as well as by industry, occupation or employers.

A Minnesota Job Skills Partnership grant supported the initial investment in TalentNeuron Recruit and a project leader to engage partners and deploy the tool across Minnesota. About 200 users have direct access to this tool, including individuals who help students and job seekers find jobs more effectively as well as those who engage in economic, workforce, or academic planning.

RealTime Talent formed as a public-private collaboration

In August 2015, Minnesota Philanthropy Partners Foundation offered fiscal support and 501c3 status to the new organization, RealTime Talent. We have further defined and expanded our role to include implementation of a pilot project to bring new and innovative job matching technologies into the online job search marketplace. The new platform in Minnesota, called the MN Job Match, launched in February of 2017.

In September of 2018, RealTime Talent concluded a sector analysis of the Twin Cities Metro. The analysis and final report outline our approach to taking the first step in addressing the labor crisis: documenting the labor shortage and skills gap, identifying the impact that our programs and initiatives could have on closing those gaps, and building a strategy for a more systematic and employer-led long-term solution.

In October of 2019, the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce Development Foundation became our new fiscal sponsor and our office space relocated to a shared space with the Center for Economic Inclusion – a valued partner of ours.