Talent Talk: NextPath Career Partners
August 24, 2021
NextPath is a boutique recruiting firm servicing both local and national clients to hire outstanding people in professional roles including Sales, Recruiting, Marketing, Customer Success, Executive Leadership, and Consulting.
Gina Curry, Vice President
Gina Curry has over 15 years in staffing including building offices from scratch for a billion dollar global firm and co-founding NextPath in 2018 where she is the top business development executive. Gina builds strong teams and takes pride in industry low turnover with a proven leadership style. Her expertise in hiring has made her a sought-after guest on business panels, news media, and live events to provide best practices in recruitment to both candidates and organizations. Gina is a Tampa native, having graduated from King High School and the University of Florida. She enjoys traveling and hiking and is married with two kids. She loves Tampa Bay and is excited to see how much the area has grown! She loves contributing to the growth of the technology business community and providing her time, talent, and treasure to local non-profits that make our community better.
Now that vaccines have been distributed and employees are returning to the office, can you share a few remote work polices that help retain talent?
The absolute number one thing we hear from candidates everyday is that they want to have flexibility. Therefore, providing an element of flexibility is the most important strategy for employers to recognize if they want to retain talent. Options for remote work and/or flex hours is something that the majority of employees desire. If an employer is too rigid with the return to office schedule, they risk greater turnover. Many of our clients have gone to a hybrid schedule where they may have 3-4 office days and 1-2 remote days each week. This provides flexibility while still allowing teams to come together for in-person collaboration and culture building.
What career opportunities should recent grads consider?
I’m a big believer that recent grads entering the workforce should strive to find an opportunity where they can have an in-office presence. The training and learning experience they will gain from that are invaluable, but just as important are the relationships they will build with future mentors. There are certainly some opportunities for which an in-office presence isn’t necessary; for example, software engineering, however for anyone starting their career in sales, marketing, operations, HR, accounting, I think it’s very important.
Provide a few industry sectors that are hot and hiring like crazy.
Healthcare and Technology continue to dominate in terms of hiring.
The Tampa Bay area was recently named by LinkedIn as a top ten market for tech worker relocation. Where are these tech workers moving from? And is this new tech talent working remote or working for another company that is based in Tampa?
We’re seeing tech relocation to Tampa like we’ve never seen before. A majority is from the Northeast, Chicago and California. Many workers moved down here with their original company but afterwards wanted to be with an employer local to the Tampa Bay area. Tech workers want remote jobs but would prefer to still reside in the same city as the company. We’ve seen some nice wins for Tampa Bay companies with talent from Silicon Valley and the Northeast, and that wasn’t as common pre-Covid.
What jobs are employers having difficulty filling?
High level technology jobs and sales talent, but that’s no different than before Covid. Those skill sets are always in demand.
What jobs are in most demand?
Technology jobs are always in demand, but specifically Cloud Engineers and Architects. We have seen an influx of Cloud roles this year.
Why are people making the move to Tampa?
Tampa isn’t a little secret anymore. With major companies announcing new Tampa offices and the constant news coverage of Tampa making yet another Top 10 list, we are in the headlines frequently. A lot of people came down last year during the pandemic to visit friends/family and decided to make the move permanent. No state income tax and the ripe business community make Tampa an ideal location for workers to relocate. People want to live where they vacation and now many people can say just that.
