Hire Local DC Education and Training Provider Portal

A one-stop-shop for strategic partners — resources, outcomes data, and tools to support candidate job readiness and interview prep.

About Hire Local DC

Hire Local DC is a coalition of employers, education, and training providers working collaboratively to connect more DC residents with high-quality jobs. By “high-quality” jobs, we mean positions that offer clear career pathways, family-sustaining wages in the high-cost Washington, DC area (approximately $65,000 per year), and opportunities for stability and professional growth. While the Washington area has an abundance of such jobs, too few DC residents are accessing them.

Many employers, education institutions, and training organizations are actively addressing this challenge. However, their efforts are often uncoordinated and they encounter significant barriers and challenges.

Hire Local DC unites these efforts to maximize collective impact. We facilitate collaboration among employers, education and training providers, and government agencies. Our initiative creates a central hub for partnership, resource sharing, and alignment across the local workforce ecosystem.

  • Through events, a regular newsletter, our website, and engagement with employers and providers, we pursue three primary activities:

  • Run an ongoing campaign to encourage employers and training partners to prioritize hiring and advancement of local DC residents

  • Support employers and providers in connecting DC residents to employment opportunities

  • Enable collaboration among employers, education and training providers, and government to strengthen the local talent pipeline for DC employers

What Makes Hire Local DC Different?

More Than a Public-Private Partnership

Hire Local DC goes beyond traditional public-private partnerships by aligning employers, education providers, workforce organizations, philanthropy, and government around a shared strategy. Together, we build coordinated pathways that better serve both employers and job seekers.

Industry-Led

Our work starts with employers. Industry partners help identify workforce challenges, shape solutions, and ensure training and career pathways reflect the skills and talent businesses need today and in the future.

Hire Local DC runs on an industry-driven model active in 20+ states and 100+ communities nationally. Employers sit at the center, supported by a full circle of strategic partners — K-12, community colleges, universities, chambers of commerce, community-based organizations, economic development groups, and workforce agencies — all coordinating their response to employer needs

How It Works

Hire Local DC runs on a continuous cycle of employer-driven priorities, hands-on collaboration, and shared accountability — spanning the full talent pipeline from career awareness through retention.

Priority setting and continuous improvement

Employers identify priorities, HLDC pilots solutions with partners, data gets gathered, and learnings feed back into the cycle.

DC Builds DC priorities across the talent pipeline

Education and training providers lead early-stage career readiness; employers lead recruiting, onboarding, and retention.

Your Role

Partnership with Hire Local DC works both ways. Here's what you commit to as a provider, and what you get back in return.

Put in

engage in the community of practice to share best practices and challenges.


Put in

Follow HLDC protocol — candidates register in monday.com, apply for open roles ahead of interview events, and review employer feedback.


Put in

Elevate the barriers to employment your candidates face, and engage in solution-oriented conversation about how to address them.

Get Out

Get Out

Get Out

Resources for Your Candidates

The HLDC Candidate Handbook is a candidate-facing resource that guides job seekers from resume writing through starting work — with tips, best practices, templates, and helpful links. Available in both English and Spanish.

Hiring Process

HLDC Interview Events

HLDC interview events connect job-ready candidates directly with hiring employers, structured around a proven process that moves candidates from application to offer efficiently and fairly. Candidates apply for open roles in advance, interview with employers actively hiring for those roles, and receive feedback that helps them — and the providers supporting them — improve with each cycle.

The HLDC Interview Event process, from candidate application through employer feedback.

HLDC Provider Community of Practice

The Hire Local DC Education & Training Provider Community of Practice meets monthly. These one-hour, virtual convenings give frontline practitioners a space to respond to evolving industry needs, collectively review data to inform continuous improvement, coordinate programs, and share feedback.

Frequently Asked Questions