Author: Michelle Mellon

We are pleased to announce that the NRWC Employer Engagement Specialist Certification program has launched!

Recognizing the shifting landscape affecting reentry workforce programs and opportunities for justice-impacted job seekers, this certification focuses on best practices to help professionals in one area where they can have consistent impact—how they engage with employers. It also includes four original frameworks as well as, templates, guides, and other resources  to support learning throughout the program with real-life applicability beyond the course.

We are grateful for the input from our community to help us design this certification, assistance from community members to test the pilot, and the generosity of the T.D. Jakes Foundation in supporting program enrollment.

To learn more about how you can become an NRWC-certified Employer Engagement Specialist, visit the certification program page.

If you’ve been feeling the ground shift under your program recently, you’re not alone. The labor market is in persistent flux, which means what you’re experiencing probably doesn’t even look the same as it did last quarter. For reentry workforce professionals, this volatility means a change in thinking about what the recruitment-to-hire process looks like.

Navigating a hard-to-read job market

Economists call the current environment “low-fire, low-hire.” Instead of mass layoffs or rapid replacements, many employers are being more deliberate in their retention and recruitment efforts. For the latter, that often translates to longer application-to-hire cycles.

This kind of caution is arguably harder for job seekers to work with than a downturn, because there’s no clear signal telling them what to do differently. The need (and thus the timeline for recruitment) also varies wildly across professions. It would seem the current advantage lies with employers.

However, the LinkedIn Talent Research 2026 highlights how job openings have roughly doubled since 2022, yet employers report unprecedented difficulty filling positions. According to National University’s 2026 hiring statistics analysis, 53% of employers say verifying skills is their main obstacle. That’s a symptom of another shift, away from a focus on degrees, titles, and accolades to prioritizing versatility and adaptable experiences.

Giving employers what they’re looking for

Among employers surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers for its 2026 Job Outlook, 70% report using skills-based hiring. That’s up from 65% the year before. And 71% of those employers use a skills-forward approach at least half the time. 

That’s a favorable opening for justice-impacted job seekers, whose transferable skills, work history, and lived competencies may not have read as easily on a traditional resume. Even as employers cite skilled-labor shortages, retention challenges, and a widening mismatch between the roles they need filled and the workers available to fill them, there’s a talent pool waiting to be (re)discovered. 

And discovery is largely about positioning. Many employers are investing in upskilling, building longer-term pipelines rather than one-off postings, and prioritizing clear, consistent communication with candidates and staffing partners. Those are behaviors rooted in, and impossible without, sound relationship-building.

The AI question everyone is wrestling with

Yet no conversation about the nature of work in 2026 can exclude AI. Globally, 40% of workers now fear that AI will make their job obsolete, up from 28% just two years ago and in the U.S., that concern runs even higher (Mercer Global Talent Trends 2026 survey). 

Much like the market in general, however, the only AI constant is inconsistency. The Economist recently touted an “AI jobs boom,” even as hiring lulls are attributed in large part to AI uncertainty. The Wall Street Journal reported a hot job market for workers without college degrees, even as experts predict AI will nullify many non-degree roles in office environments.

For reentry professionals, this matters in two ways. First, it means the repetitive or task-heavy roles that have historically been common entry points for justice-impacted job seekers may shift in scope or number over time. This underscores the need to build relationships with employers across a wider range of sectors and skill levels. 

Second, it means employers themselves may be as anxious and uncertain as job seekers about what’s next. This can make employers more receptive, not less, to workforce partners who can bring clarity with vetted, supported candidates who reduce onboarding risk by meeting current as well as perceived future needs. 

Stronger employer relationships are imperative

None of this— selective caution, skills-based hiring, AI disruption— resolves itself through a stronger resume or a better interview coaching session alone. Instead, it’s about employers who trust that you understand their big-picture priorities, can bring candidates ready, willing, and able to help boost their company’s bottom line, and are committed to successful placements defined by sustainability for both employer and employee.

That’s why employer engagement should be viewed as a core professional skill for reentry workforce. In its two-day FutureWorks conference earlier this month, Indeed.com showcased hiring managers and employers who, despite the potential inherent in AI, uniformly lauded “the human advantage.” 

How does that look? It’s personal and relatable. It’s cultivating regular contact and open conversations. It’s recognizing how stronger employer relationships expand what your program can offer: more openings, more flexibility, more willingness on the part of employers to actively partner with you, rely on you, trust you as a valued member of their team.

The opportunities in the future of work lie in the gap between quantity and quality—the fine-for-now versus the long-term right fit. Knowing how to seize those opportunities to engage and encourage employers is a significant part of your role as a broker of trust. Instead of trying to keep pace, you can work with employers to set a pace that works for them and for justice-impacted job seekers so that together you’re helping meet needs now and well into the future.

NRWC conducts onsite Employer Engagement Training sessions and is now launching an Employer Engagement Specialist Certification. 

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts asserted that change is the new normal. While some people embraced the idea of persistent novelty, others wished for things to “go back” to how they were. 

There’s an old saying: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Does this idea still hold up if “the same” now equals constant change, and at an accelerated rate? In fact, how can anything remain, when it seems like everything is in flux? 

The point of this saying is to focus on what’s at the core of the transformation. Shifting titles, labels, and categories are simply means to an end—the fundamentals behind them don’t change. For justice-impacted workers, that unchanging core goal is economic mobility. So how do you leverage change to achieve it?

Martec’s Law

Normally when we think about change we envision infinite possibilities. Yet there are limits based on who or what is experiencing change. As Martec’s Law notes: Technology changes exponentially; organizations change logarithmically. 

Often technology is developed well before its potential use cases are mapped out. AI is a prime example of that, as it continually evolves and acquires new capabilities while individuals, employers, social standards, and legislation struggle to keep pace.

What does that mean for the reentry workforce field? For the most part, it means learning how to strategically weather disruption. We’ve seen wave after wave of labor market changes attributed to AI, yet some organizations have already begun reversing previous decisions and are re-hiring human labor.

The back-and-forth highlights the gap noted in Martec’s Law; the opportunities that exist in the uncertainty between where organizations are and where they could be. To ensure that justice-impacted job seekers are employable now and adaptable to advance with change, it helps to recognize and plan for the long-term possibilities.

Reexamining Need and Reallocating Labor

The challenge for modern job seekers isn’t a shortage of jobs; it’s a mismatch between where workers are and where the opportunities have moved. AI and automation may be eliminating routine task roles, but not roles requiring creativity, mental agility, and an indisputable human touch, like the skilled trades. For justice-impacted job seekers, this shift offers an opening if they can show employers they possess the desired skill set. 

That too, is changing for the better. Job search platforms consistently report that employers are focusing less on candidates who can learn a specific process and more on candidates who can adapt quickly once they’re in the role. That means transferable “soft” skills that shorten the learning curve—leadership, communication and active listening, critical thinking and problem-solving, emotional intelligence, teamwork—are becoming the real currency of long-term employability.

In a LinkedIn survey, 90% of employers reported these so-called soft skills (more popularly referred to now as essential or power skills) to be as important as technical skills. Yet most of those same leaders reported difficulty finding hires who meet that need. Many of these skills are not easily learned through training; they’re inherent or accumulated across a variety of experiences. 

The task ahead for the reentry workforce field is to not only match job seekers based on interest, experience, and learned skills, but to translate a justice-impacted individual’s lived experience into language employers recognize as valuable. Sustainable employment with opportunities for advancement comes through connecting the full range of your job seeker’s capabilities to a labor market that’s reallocating talent to meet the quickly evolving needs of the future of work.

We invite you to view the recording our webinar: “Future of Work” Career Durability in a Changing Labor Market where you’ll hear from experts on how you can prepare justice-impacted individuals to productively navigate uncertainty for career durability and advancement.

Resources Shared by Our Speakers

Continue exploring the topics discussed during the webinar with these resources shared by our panelists.

Dean Craig – Business Services Director, Willamette Workforce Partnership

• Oregon Employability Skills Resources
• Workforce Development Toolkit

Kysha Wright Frazier – President & CEO, Corporation for a Skilled Workforce

• Career & Credential Pathways
• Credential As You Go
• Labor Market and Workforce Development System Toolkit
• Tools for Designing Quality Jobs and Economic Mobility
• Workforce Benchmarking Network

Audrey Mickahail – SVP, Market Strategy & Solutions, Opportunity@Work

• Presentation Slides
• Tear the Paper Ceiling Video
• Paper Ceiling Skills-First Dashboard Progress Tracker