Upwardly Featured in Calgary Herald

Forget the Great Resignation.

“The focus should be on the ‘great retention’ opportunity at hand today,” says Jackson McDonough, chief executive officer of Upwardly.

As co-founder of one of Western Canada’s most innovative recruitment companies, McDonough says that organizations should be looking for new talent that will not just have an impact in their workplace today, but have the potential to be long-term assets and even their leaders of tomorrow.

“It’s really about hiring for potential over pedigree,” he says.

In this respect, Upwardly specializes in helping companies recruit recent post-secondary graduates for a variety of industries, including technology, finance, the energy sector and construction.

“Our value proposition is helping clients find the right fit for their organization, with new talent that has the potential to stay and grow,” says Jill McDonough, Upwardly’s chief vision officer and co-founder.

New graduates or those with only a few years of workplace experience are largely an untapped resource for employers, she adds.

Often companies overlook, or at the very least poorly understand, the potential benefits of this demographic with skill sets increasingly important in making workplace cultures more innovative in a fast-changing, technologically driven world.

“It’s about more than being digitally savvy; it’s about being digitally agile because technology is changing workplaces so quickly,” she says.

Recent graduates are often very comfortable with this change, while also adept at working in collaborative environments with individuals of diverse backgrounds.

“Our experience is these new hires want to go into organizations where, yes, they can learn on the job, but they offer benefits to the organization too that are often felt immediately,” Jackson says.

Upwardly specializes in finding these employees by using proprietary software that helps employers develop their own recipe for success to find new talent that fits well with their culture.

“We call it our ‘X factor’ that employers otherwise may struggle to define on their own,” says Jackson.

“We’re helping build the economy of today and of the future by helping promising talent to stay in Calgary and see Alberta as a place to grow their careers and make an impact.”

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