How to recruit young professionals back to ND

BY JOANNA SLOMINSKI

Like ever y other business in North Dakota, Mortenson Construction is looking for good talent to move to the state to build “what’s next” for the company. In a time when other states are struggling with unemployment, North Dakota should count itself lucky to have the opposite problem Yet the struggle to fill vacancies can often be frustrating, particularly as the Midwest continues to worr y about “brain drain” the phenomenon of educated youth leaving rural areas for large, urban centers.

Fortunately, Mortenson has found two simple solutions for the “brain drain.” One of our primary targets is young educated professionals who left the Midwest to work elsewhere With ties to the region, many were searching for what they did not know North Dakota offered: small town living with big-city perks

How’d we do it? First, we focused on the hot button for many of today’s 20- and 30-somethings: technology and innovation And, second, we executed an external and internal social media strategy Together those two initiatives produced great results Within a short period of time we were able to successfully recruit more than 15 young professionals to North Dakota to fill vital vacancies (including several internal transfers), and the vast majority of them grew up in nearby rural areas.

At the core of our strategy is the simple acknowledgement that North Dakota is a great place to live Certainly, I do not miss sitting in traffic in the Twin Cities for two hours a day, and neither do our recruits From legendarily good fishing, to hiking the majestic badlands, to the shopping variety in our towns and cities, North Dakota contains the best aspects of small town living with the adventure of truly perfect wilderness At the same time, with the oil boom and sweeping innovation, well-established and pioneering industries are making their homes here, offering employees a chance to significantly further their careers within the state.

At Mortenson we started by telling our technology story. Certainly, North Dakota already has technology greats getting in on the action Technology has a stronghold in the area, including Microsoft and Intelligent InSites While construction is not traditionally known as a high-tech industry, we make a point to show potential recruits that Mortenson is using cutting-edge technology to further revolutionize our field. As an example, we use Occulus Rift, the virtual reality system that is currently making waves in the video game industry, to give our clients a chance to “step into” their new space before it has even been built We share information via iPads, utilize the "cloud" for information storage and use virtual design software. For potential young employees, knowing that their future employer is a technology leader is paramount.

Focusing on your company ’ s innovation will attract new recruits, but where and how do you reach them? For Mortenson, we went where they lived: social media

To reach young professionals Mortenson utilizes a company-wide social media strategy via Facebook, LinkedIn, mortenson com and Twitter Just posting the job opening was not enough we also engaged with those who were interested, and offered updates in real-time And, as our entire company knew about the social media strategy, our current employees were also able to engage their existing social profiles to boost the recruiting process. As always, remember that social media is a two-way conversation, and engaging with your audience is just as important as posting the job

While recruiting continues to be an ongoing challenge to all businesses in North Dakota, we strongly recommend focusing on technology and social media to build a strong and young employee base. The more young employees we bring to North Dakota, the greater foundation we have to build a smart, energized, committed workforce to our great state PB

Joanna Slominski Construction executive Mortenson Construction Joanna.Slominski@Mortenson.com