Professional Recruiters of Rochester (Pro-ROC)
The Talent Collective
On June 18th, Pro-ROC is bringing together our community for The Talent Collective, a dynamic, half-day experience designed for connection, learning, and growth.
This event will feature rotating, facilitated sessions focused on today’s most pressing talent challenges, including talent acquisition and retention. Attendees will select from multiple facilitated sessions throughout the morning, moving between sessions to gain insights from a variety of speakers while building meaningful relationships along the way. Expect high-impact conversations, real takeaways, and plenty of opportunities to connect.
Whether you're navigating tough conversations with hiring managers, trying to improve placement quality, building a retention strategy, or exploring smarter ways to source local talent, this morning is built for you. Four expert speakers. Four focused sessions. Tools you can put to work immediately.
This is your morning to invest in yourself, and bring back tools your team will feel on Monday.
*Please note: your personal rotation will be emailed to you after your registration.
Interested in Sponsoring?
The Talent Collective is intentionally designed with significant networking time and dedicated opportunities to engage with sponsors throughout the morning. Sponsors will also be highlighted through 1-minute sponsor spotlight videos shared on LinkedIn leading up to the event.
Agenda:
- 8:00 – 8:30 AM: Breakfast & Networking
- 8:30 – 8:45 AM: Welcome & Introduction
- 8:45 – 8:50 AM: Transition to Breakout Rooms
Breakout Round 1: 8:50 – 9:30 AM (40 min)
- 4 concurrent sessions, 25 attendees each
- Break from 9:30 AM – 9:35 AM
Breakout Round 2: 9:35 – 10:15 AM (40 min)
- 4 concurrent sessions, 25 attendees each
- Mid-morning break from 10:15 AM – 10:30 AM
Breakout Round 3: 10:30 – 11:10 AM (40 min)
- 4 concurrent sessions, 25 attendees each
- Break from 11:10 AM – 11:15 AM
Breakout Round 4: 11:15 – 11:55 AM (40 min)
- 4 concurrent sessions, 25 attendees each
- Transition to main room from 11:55 AM – 12:00 PM
12:00 – 12:30 PM: Panel Discussion – All 4 Speakers
Meet our Speakers
Zoe Koulouris
Founder, Transform with Irini
Session Title: Mastering Honest Conversations
Difficult conversations with hiring managers are one of the most common — and most avoided — challenges in talent acquisition. The question isn't whether they'll happen, it's whether your people are equipped to handle them well. When they are, organizations move faster, resolve conflict sooner, and build stronger cultures where honest dialogue becomes the norm.
In this 40-minute interactive breakout session, Zoe guides participants through a practical path to mastery — from understanding why these conversations break down, to building the skills and discipline to navigate them with confidence and purpose. That includes giving and receiving feedback effectively and creating the psychological safety that makes honest dialogue possible in the first place.
Audience Takeaways:
- Identify the root causes that make workplace conversations with hiring managers difficult
- Learn the practices and disciplines that separate skilled communicators from the rest
- Practice frameworks through role-play to move from concept to real-world application
- Understand the broader organizational impact when leaders commit to mastering honest dialogue
About Zoe:
Zoe Koulouris is an entrepreneur who founded, scaled, and successfully exited a software agency before turning her focus to the human systems that make or break organizational growth. Today, through Transform with Irini, she coaches and consults leaders on building the communication, trust, and organizational dynamics needed to lead adaptive, cohesive teams through change.
Andrew Biernat
Strategic Business Consultant, Keynote Speaker, & Author
Session Title: The Three Factors that Make Placements Stick
You know the cost of a bad hire — but what about the hidden cost of disengaged talent? Across recruiting, professionals face the same challenge: placements that look perfect on paper but flame out in 90 days, candidates who accept offers then ghost, and teams that can't retain top performers despite competitive compensation.
This interactive workshop introduces the Performance Enhancing Vitamins (PEVs) model — a research-backed framework that reveals what truly drives placement longevity and employee engagement. Through a personal assessment, teaching segments, and breakout discussions, you'll gain immediately applicable tools for both external recruiters and internal talent professionals. Many of your stakeholders see you as a recruiter. Leverage the PEVs and become their strategic advisor.
About Andrew:
Andrew Biernat is a strategic business consultant and team dynamics specialist who equips leadership teams and managers with practical frameworks to transform workplace engagement and enable cross-functional collaboration. Drawing on his diverse business background across sales, marketing, account management, and project management, he helps teams identify hidden talent patterns and redesign work processes to align with natural strengths. He is the author of The Team That Loves Mondays.
Alyssa Klimuszka
Session Title: From Burnout to Buy-In: Creating the Virtuous Cycle of Retention and Engagement
Employee retention is often approached as a strategic or operational challenge — yet the psychological experience of work plays a critical role in whether employees stay, disengage, or leave. This session explores how workplace wellness, engagement, and organizational psychology interact with retention strategies to shape what can become either a virtuous or vicious cycle of employment.
When wellness and engagement are intentionally supported, organizations can create a virtuous cycle in which employees feel valued, perform at higher levels, and remain committed. Participants will learn how aligning retention strategy with psychological drivers — such as meaningful work, supportive leadership, and a culture of wellbeing — can strengthen workforce stability and performance.
Sean Anderson
Co-Founder, Employer Tax Credit Services
Session Title: Building a Smarter Workforce: Incentives, Inclusion & the Rochester Talent Pipeline
PRO-ROC members are facing a shared challenge: open roles, rising labor costs, and fewer candidates coming through traditional channels. The solution may already be here — in the form of untapped local talent and the financial incentives designed to support hiring it.
This session reframes workforce strategy around opportunity. Young people, justice-impacted individuals, and other underrepresented candidates represent a significant and overlooked pipeline — and programs like WOTC and New York State youth hiring credits can meaningfully offset the cost of bringing them on board. This isn't about charity. It's about building a more resilient, sustainable hiring model rooted right here in Rochester.
About Pro-ROC
Professional Recruiters of Rochester (Pro-ROC) is a special interest group of the National Human Resources Association – Rochester Affiliate. Pro-ROC’s collaborative leadership team assists recruitment professionals in refining and enhancing the craft of talent acquisition.
