Posted on: 11/12/2025

Thought Leadership

Local government is facing a critical moment in its talent pipeline, and early collaboration may be the key to changing the story. In this article, Chloe Herrmann explores how the LGA and WMCA early careers pilot is reshaping how councils reach young people long before they enter the job market. By bringing together national branding, regional expertise and authentic local voices, the campaign demonstrates the real power of partnership. It shows why councils investing now, collectively, will be the ones who secure the talent they need tomorrow. A forward look at what’s possible , and a call to think differently about workforce futures.

By Chloe Herrmann, Principal Consultant – Resourcing

When we partnered with the Local Government Association (LGA) and the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) to pilot an early careers attraction campaign for local government across October and November it reached over 527,151 people and achieved over 2 million impressions on TikTok alone. The real story isn’t just the reach. The real story isn’t just the reach. It’s what becomes possible when we stop working in silos and start building something bigger together.

The challenge facing local government recruitment is well documented. We've talked about our ageing workforce, the skills gaps, the competition from private sector employers. But there's another challenge we discuss less often: most young people simply don't know what local government do, or why it matters, until it's too late. By the time they're making career decisions at 16 or 18, local government isn't even on their radar.

That's the talent pipeline problem we're really facing. And it's one we can't solve alone.

From Transactional to Strategic

There's a fundamental shift happening in how we need to think about recruitment. The old model was transactional: a vacancy appears, we advertise it, we fill it. But when you're competing for talent in a constrained market, that approach doesn't work anymore. We need to move from transactional recruitment to relational talent development, building awareness and aspiration years before we have vacancies to fill.

The challenge is that building sustained awareness can be expensive and resource intensive. No single council or public sector organisation can achieve the reach and consistency needed to shift perceptions among an entire generation. But when we work together, regionally and nationally, we create something none of us could build individually.

This is where strategic partnership becomes a competitive advantage. While private sector employers compete with each other for talent, local government has a unique opportunity to collaborate. We're not rivals. Every pound we invest in raising awareness of local government careers benefits all of us.

Building Something Together from the Start

That's why we were keen to be part of the LGA's early careers campaign from the very beginning. Working alongside the LGA and the WMCA as a core partner in the pilot, we helped shape an approach to early careers engagement that could work at national, regional and local level.

Our role in the working group crossed multiple areas including sharing resourcing insight and expertise, facilitating workshops and encouraging participation with West Midlands’ councils, and widespread promotion and direct engagement with young people and career influencers. This wasn't about simply sharing content. It was about strategic amplification, taking a national message and making it resonate locally across the West Midlands.

Some of the highlights for us were:

• The launch of the campaign at the WMJobs Public Sector Expo in October

• Showcasing careers in local government to young people and their teachers at the National School and College Leavers Festival

• Supporting a virtual work experience placement at Ormiston SWB Academy

• Sharing careers information and resources at Shropshire Council's Teacher Encounters session.

What made this campaign particularly effective was the multi-layered approach. The LGA brought their national campaign branding, associated funding and professional marketing and creative agency support. As regional partners, WME and WMCA contributed recruitment expertise, established networks, school connections, delivery mechanisms and insight into young people. Telford and Wrekin Council and Sandwell Council shared their staff stories and provided locations to film and capture authentic content with the wider region using the material to amplify their local recruitment messaging.

Regional partnerships are essential to translating national campaigns into local impact. The early careers campaign, developed in partnership with West Midlands Employers and the West Midlands Combined Authority, demonstrated how collaboration creates a greater reach and consistency. Cllr Jane Scullion, Chair of the LGA’s Improvement Committee.

The Multiplier Effect

Here's why partnership approaches work: if a group of councils each run their own individual campaigns, they might collectively reach a few thousand young people with inconsistent messaging and duplicated effort. But when those same councils participate in a coordinated regional campaign, supported by a national framework, the reach multiplies, the messaging becomes consistent, the professional quality increases, and the costs are significantly reduced.

This is the multiplier effect of strategic collaboration. We're not just adding our efforts together. We're amplifying them.

Why This Matters for Your Workforce Strategy

For HR and resourcing leaders, the question is: what's the return on investment? Why dedicate resources to reaching 14 and 15 year olds when we have immediate vacancies to fill today?

The answer lies in understanding the compound effect of early engagement. Young people start forming career aspirations much earlier than we think. By the time they're actively job hunting, their perceptions are already set. If local government hasn't been part of the conversation earlier, we're simply not in the consideration set.

The young people we reach today through campaigns like this become the apprentices, graduates, and early career professionals we recruit in three to five years' time. Every conversation about local government careers is building the pipeline we'll rely on to address our future skills gaps.

Getting Involved

The campaign is ongoing, and there are practical ways your organisation can participate:

- Organisations across local government can access the national ‘Make a difference, work for your local council’ campaign material which includes the early careers focussed assets and messaging here.

- Share WME’s ‘Exploring Careers in Local Councils’ career resources with your local schools and colleges

- Participate in regional and national campaigns - Share your authentic staff stories via your website, social media and WMJobs’ regional promotion

We're continuing to support councils across the region reach young people where they are including engaging with regional partners, showcasing careers in the sector through WMJobs and direct engagement with schools and employability support services.

Whether you engage through national campaigns, regional initiatives, or both, the key is to start thinking differently about how you build your future workforce.

The councils that recognise this as a workforce priority, that invest in partnership approaches, and that take action now will be the ones securing the talent they need for the future. Those that wait, or try to go it alone, risk being left behind.

To find out more about how West Midlands Employers can support your early careers engagement please get in touch.