When it comes to hiring great people, tech companies face a competitive market. There just aren’t enough candidates to fill all the job openings. Or, rather, that’s the conventional wisdom. The truth may be closer to this: There aren’t enough candidates coming through the traditional hiring processes to fill all the job openings.

But what if we re-engineered the way we recruit and evaluate candidates?

This is the question that inspires the Apprenti team every day. Apprenti is a program of the WTIA Workforce Institute focused on addressing the tech industry’s workforce shortage and identifying diverse talent. Jennifer Carlson, the group’s executive director, and I had a conversation not long ago about the need for greater innovation and break-through thinking when it comes to how our industry approaches hiring.

I was so intrigued by Jennifer’s ideas and insights, that I asked her if we could have a longer conversation that I would record to share on the WTIA blog. She agreed, and you can hear our discussion below:

If you’d like to meet the Apprenti team, learn more about the program, and add your own ideas to the conversation, please join us for FullConTech on May 8. We’ll be talking about “Building a better workforce,” and you’ll have the unusual opportunity to connect with people from industry, government, education and non-profit organizations for collaborative problem-solving. Also, check out the speaker line-up, featuring Julio Portalatin, CEO of Mercer, as our keynote. You won’t want to miss this.