Every year, there are inevitably a ton of "Best of" lists that appear on LinkedIn and beyond. These lists generally shout out the same few names in a space: the A-list actors of the industry, the ones with massive followings and influence.There's nothing inherently wrong with these lists — but when we had the idea at Loxo to celebrate some movers & shakers in the recruitment industry, we knew that we wanted to approach it differently.
The "why" behind our Talent Trailblazers list
Our biggest aim with our 2024 Talent Trailblazers list was to focus on the do-ers:The people who are doing the hard-but-necessary work.Real people who are working hard every day to bring incremental change to this industry.The ones who are taking big swings, trying new things, and deserve to be celebrated.And it seems like, based on some feedback, we hit the mark:
But we knew didn't want Talent Trailblazers to be only about celebrating the contributions of practitioners:We also wanted it to be an opportunity to add some more good into the world. Recruiters are clearly passionate about helping others in their professional lives — and many of them have secret passions that they support in their personal lives, too.We decided to leverage this list as a way to pay it forward, to help our Trailblazers give back to the organizations they personally support — on Loxo's dime.To have some fun with it, we hosted a LinkedIn "takeover" — in which we asked all of our Talent Trailblazer honorees to post about their inclusion on the list. The person whose post received the most engagement would win a $1,000 donation to the charity/cause of their choice, on us.
Our 2024 Talent Trailblazers winner
After reviewing all of the engagement metrics, we're thrilled to announce our 2024 Talent Trailblazers Takeover (try saying that 5x fast...) winner...TaJuan Wilson, Ed.D., CDE!
TaJuan started his career in higher education, leading powerful DEI initiatives across multiple institutions — including the University of Iowa, Medical University of South Carolina, Missouri State University, and Georgia Southern University.Now, as Managing Director at Storbeck Search's Diversified Search Group, TaJuan leads executive searches for colleges, universities, and non-profit organizations. It's a full-circle moment, in which he now gets the opportunity to place leaders like himself in higher education leadership roles.As promised, TaJuan's win means a $1,000 donation to the charity of his choice — and he identified Ujima Language and Literacy as the organization he'd like to support.Ujima is a Missouri-based non-profit geared toward connecting children to educational opportunities, build literacy, and facilitate summer learning. It's a fantastic program, led by passionate individuals who TaJuan knows personally. We're honored to get the chance to support them through TaJuan!On that note...
One more piece of good news :)
There were SO many amazing charities that our Trailblazers brought to our attention through this initiative. So we decided to add one last cherry to the top of our Talent Trailblazers sundae:Loxo is making a $25 donation to EACH of the charities that the participants of our takeover would've donated to if they'd won.We're excited about the impact this list has had so far — and can't wait for our next opportunity to celebrate the passionate individuals who make up the recruitment industry again in the future.Have someone who you think would be great to include on lists like these in the future? Reach out to alexandra@loxo.co!
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