You are motivated and ready to grow professionally and take your career to the next level, but how do you do that? The job market seems tough, so how are others finding ways to navigate? As a Talent Acquisition professional, I want to provide a look behind the curtain as to where and how recruiters are looking for talent, so you can use this information to help you land your next opportunity or advance your career within your current company. And spoiler alert: the old adage, it’s who you know, may not be too far off! The goal is to leave you with some actionable insights that you can apply right away to begin growing your professional network and reaching your career goals.

About our speaker: 

Mady Schmidt is currently the Supervisor, Talent Acquisition Programs at Co-op Solutions. She got her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Iowa State University and her Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership from Waldorf University. Since joining Co-op 5 years ago, Mady has brought about positive change in the creation of new programs and initiatives including the Co-op Companion Program, a new Sales Trainee Program, and Co-op’s first-ever Internship Program. Mady and her team created the internship program from nothing in 2019 and it was recently named a Top 100 Internship Program in 2022 and the team recently earned a Campus Forward Award for 2024. Mady enjoys making connections with local colleges, universities, and high schools to help students explore possible career paths and realize their potential. Personally, Mady and her husband, Andrew are blessed with their 3-year old son, Cooper. A fighter since birth, Cooper spent the first 456 days of his life in the University of Iowa Children’s hospital, where he received a life-saving kidney transplant that allowed him to come home. This inspired Mady to create Cooper’s Charity Classic, a golf tournament to raise funds for Tori’s Angels, an Iowa non-profit that supports children with life-threatening medical conditions. In 2 years, Cooper’s Classic has raised over $65,000 for the organization to help them continue to sponsor more fighters like Cooper