Utah Recruitment Initiative

Growing Utah’s Economy by providing needed talent to Utah companies

It has been two years since Governor Jon Huntsman tasked the Governor’s Office of Economic Development to strengthen workforce recruitment and talent acquisition to the state as a pillar of Utah’s economic development formula with the creation of the Utah Recruitment Initiative (URI). And during that time, as the nation’s economy has slowed and Utah finds itself in the unique position of coming out of a period of historically low unemployment and record high job growth, the Governor’s vision of URI and its purpose has proven beneficial in helping provide another option to Utah companies for finding highly trained job recruits wanting to make their way to Utah.

URI began as a public-private partnership task force that oversaw some of the state’s first foray’s into the national job recruitment market. URI, under GOED’s leadership, has partnered with the Department of Workforce Services in bringing together both public, private and non-profit education and economic development groups. This effort assures that Utah’s job pipeline is filled with vibrant employees who have the specialized skill sets and knowledge required of today’s global workforce.

At present, the URI taskforce has numerous resources to assist out-of-state job seekers in finding one of the many available jobs in Utah requiring specialized technical skills that are in high demand. The URI taskforce is also working with Utah companies to make sure they have access to candidate information as well as resources essential to attract candidates to Utah’s unparalleled quality of life and dynamic economy.

The URI taskforce, through www.utahworksforyou.com provides the resumes of more than 2,000 candidates, most of who are living out of state, to Utah companies seeking these individuals. That database of Utah jobseekers is growing at an average of 20-30 new postings a week depending on marketing trends undertaken by URI. Thanks to GOED’s partnership’s with other private and non-profit groups, Utah companies can also request information on more than 18,000 job seekers who have expressed an interest in returning to and working in Utah. The URI website also allows companies to post specific positions to various job boards around the country and also features the more than 26,000 open jobs available in Utah through the Department of Workforce Services.

Through various national media campaigns and robust online marketing utahworksforyou.com has been receiving close to 5,000 visitors a week. Workforce development will remain one of the nation’s top economic development issues for years to come and Utah is making sure it is a step ahead in this area.

The mission of URI is to make sure the message that Utah has plenty of great jobs and continues to add to them is out there, along with being an access point to match that talent with the companies in Utah needing it.