LAS VEGAS – It’s often taken for granted how it is that Nevada, the country’s fastest growing state, continues to attract skilled professionals needed to serve the community.

But it’s no accident. Rather, it’s thanks to the work and dedication of companies such as Las Vegas-based Recruiting Nevada – companies that have made it their mission to recruit to Nevada regardless of economic circumstances.

Recruiting Nevada has been diligently working on the frontline to strengthen Nevada’s economy through socially responsible recruiting since 1993. And leading the efforts is founder and president, Doug Geinzer.

Through Recruiting Nevada, which attracts jobseekers in career fields across the board to Nevada job postings on www.RecruitingNevada.com, Geinzer has been working to fill open Nevada jobs with quality professionals since the company’s inception. But although his mission to serve Nevada has been steadfast, his avenues of accomplishing this have seen much evolution.

“There’s a reason we’ve been able to survive and thrive for 15 years,” Geinzer said. “Other than our mission, ‘change’ has been our only constant. We’re not the same company we were five years ago, and we certainly aren’t the same company we began as. The only way to succeed is to respond to the market.”

And change, Recruiting Nevada has.

The company began as the publisher of Las Vegas’ first employment-specific newspaper, Las Vegas Employment News and has since done everything from publishing a Las Vegas Job Guide, a job/relocation package sold to college students looking to pursue a career in the hospitality industry; to hosting Las Vegas Career Fairs, an industry-specific career fair group that assisted in the development of thriving industries and assisted employers in finding qualified employee candidates; to publishing Diversity2000, the first diversity recruiting magazine distributed to every college campus across the country; to creating Diversified Recruitment Advertising, Southern Nevada’s only locally owned and operated, full-service advertising agency specializing in recruitment or help-wanted advertising of its time.

A leader in the industry since the beginning, Recruiting Nevada continues to reinvent itself. And along the way, the company has not only become a Las Vegas success story, but it has done so by helping others do the same.

Today the company publishes the state’s largest Nevada-specific employment Web site, RecruitingNevada.com, which, in April, was selected for inclusion in the prestigious “WEDDLE’s 2007-2008 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet.” But although the company has found its home as an Internet-based business, it certainly hasn’t stopped changing.

In late 2006, Geinzer launched a Nevada-focused blog to serve as a “one-stop shop” resource for recruiters focusing on the Nevada marketplace and found almost immediate success. Monitoring more than 50 sources of information himself, Geinzer’s blog includes facts and insight in a variety of categories, including out-of-market recruiting, online recruiting and diversity; information on all upcoming job fairs, training seminars and upcoming awards; calendars; links to other blogs, and more.

Also in 2006, Recruiting Nevada launched and became a partner with the Home News Community Newspapers in hosting regular Opportunity Boulevard Career Fairs, which focus on attracting out-of-state jobseekers and older workers to Nevada jobs. Made up of several local businesses, including AARP-Las Vegas and Nevada Broadcasters Association, the group hosted five career fairs in 2007, which, combined, attracted more than 14,200 jobseekers – over 2,915 of which came to Nevada from out-of-state to attract professionals to Nevada jobs. The next Opportunity Boulevard Career Fair will take place Feb. 21.

Geinzer also serves as chairman of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce’s We Care Committee, which works to support teachers as well as their family members, as they move to Nevada through programs such as the Trailing Spouse program. The program was developed to work with Southern Nevada’s business leaders to help family members of much-needed teachers find employment. The Trailing Spouse program encourages employers to give special attention to resumés submitted by family members of new Clark County School District teachers relocating to Southern Nevada.

Recruiting Nevada not only developed the Trailing Spouse Program for the We Care program and the Clark County School District, but is now implementing this program with many of the area hospitals. The Trailing Spouse Program distributes family members’ resumés to hundreds of top employers in Southern Nevada, who also have access to a searchable database of those resumés.

Geinzer has also served as the chairperson of the recruitment task force of the Southern Nevada Medical Industry Coalition for the past four years.  This task force is composed of human resource directors and recruiters from all area hospitals and medical facilities.  The group travels outside of Nevada to markets such as California and Chicago to recruit nurses to relocate to Nevada.

In addition to the company’s strategic partnerships, Geinzer has also continued to improve the efficiency of the already-successful online job boards. After condensing the company’s 10 previously separate industry-specific employment Web sites into one, www.RecruitingNevada.com, Geinzer then honed the site to include a candidate matching feature, which allows Recruiting Nevada to deliver its clients candidates matched with the precision of a headhunter while maintaining the pricing of a “help wanted” ad.  

Most recently, Recruiting Nevada partnered with California-based Vcruit to offer video recruitment ads to help their client businesses further introduce their company and its culture to potential employees. Through Vcruit (vcruit.com), businesses can upload professional quality videos about their companies to enhance their profile. Video will also be incorporated into Recruiting Nevada’s new relocation page as well to provide jobseekers with information on the quality of life Nevada offers.

“We’re always looking for new ways to attract not just more, but the best, people to Nevada,” Geinzer said. “Our affiliation with Vcruit allows us to showcase the best of what Nevada has to offer to jobseekers – both at work and throughout the community.”

And a partnership with Internet-based Arbita – the world’s largest global multi-posting system for job boards as well as the largest online recruitment advertising agency – is also in the works. The partnership would allow Recruiting Nevada’s reach, and thus, the reach of its clients, to go global.

Through the partnership, Recruiting Nevada will act as the Nevada representative of Arbita’s services. Once a client purchases an ad through Recruiting Nevada, they can then select any additional job boards, such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com, they would like to advertise on – selecting by country, state, city or industry.

So what does 2008 hold for Geinzer and Recruiting Nevada? As of yet, only Geinzer knows. But something involving “change” might be a good guess.

I had the great opportunity yesterday to present at the Boyd Gaming human resource directors meeting.  I delivered my “War for Talent – Don’t Cannibalize, Collaborate” presentation that I have delivered to most of the other industries in Nevada.  There were nearly 25 HRDs from all Boyd and Coast properties. 

At first I was skeptical and not sure gaming would “get it.”  In the past, they have not.  Without a doubt, Boyd Gaming “gets it.”  They understood the challenges of an aging and weakening labor pool, diversification of job classifications within gaming, the need to discover hidden talent pools, and most surprising, the importance of reaching Generation Y (very few employers have acknowledged this challenge).

Boyd understands the recruiting challenges they will face when they bring Echelon Place on line in 2010.  They will need to recruit nearly 10,000 new employees on the ‘tail’ of the fourth boom where over 110,000 gaming employees will be needed in total.   Challenging?  Yes.  But with proper strategic planning, like Boyd Gaming was doing yesterday, they will surely succeed.

Boyd acknowledges the power of partnering with the local community with programs such as the “Trailing Spouse Program,” which benefit education and healthcare.  Why?  Because this is an absolutely huge labor pool that can be tapped.  Boyd Gaming realizes the need to partner with local educators to “grow their own” for critical areas of need. 

So needless to say…. Boyd Gaming just “gets it.”

Las Vegas is booming.  We all know that.  What we are coining as the “fourth boom,” will create over 113,500 new casino jobs according to a recent article in the Las Vegas Review Journal.  Read it here.  That is a lot of jobs.

It was the first boom in 1993 that put Recruiting Nevada on the map. Actually, back then we did business as the Las Vegas Employment Guide.  We began publishing the first employment specific newspaper in Nevada (it was later sold to Cox and Landmark Communications and has totally changed its’ focus).  When the MGM Grand, Treasure Island and Luxor all opened within a few months of each other, a total of 20,000 jobs were added.  The Employment Guide was in the middle of that surge.

Just about very bit of talent was absorbed from this boom.  We executed a very strong college recruiting campaign, not to reach the graduating students, but rather to reach the attritioning students.  Typically this number is much greater…around 60%.  And perfect demographics for the casinos; young, energetic, motivated and wanting to make money.  We achieved a high level of success with this initiative.  A similar effort is already in the planning stage.

In preparation of the next boom, we recently began meeting with HR executives within the gaming industry.  Much has changed since 1993 including:

• Most of the strip is now owned by 3 gaming companies
• Gaming jobs are not the only job titles needed
• Non-gaming jobs now outweigh gaming jobs
• Most jobs are actually back-of-the house
• The Internet has come about as the leading recruitment medium
• Most casinos now use sophisticated applicant tracking systems
• Housing costs have more than tripled

All are very unique and substantial challenges.

In the RJ article there is a lot of talk about how 110,00 applications were taken in at the Wynn and 100,000 applications at Red Rock Station.  What was not really addressed was the fact that the majority of these applicants are already working in other casinos.  The labor pool is not growing, it is just moving.  Casinos are cannibalizing each other’s talent.  Some from within their own organizations.

Each time a new casino opens it is a new round of “musical chairs.”  Candidates from older “A” properties move to the new “A” property.  Those from “B” properties move to the older “A” casinos.  And the “C” property employees move to the “B” properties.  The “C” properties are left working with “D” candidates and eventually get acquired by one of the big three, only to implode the casino and build a new “A” resort.

Sounds like another supply-demand problem similar to that which we face with teachers, nurses, engineers and just about every profession in town nowadays.  Fortunately, Recruiting Nevada is prepared for this next boom and will be able to assist the gaming industry with their dilemma.

If you look at the websites of Recruiting Nevada today, they do not encompass gaming.  That was by design.  We wanted to address and support non-gaming first in anticipation of this next boom.  We wanted to make sure that we could attract nurses and teachers to allow Las Vegas to continue its’ growth pattern.

Now, it appears the gaming jobs may assist us in our attraction of these needed professionals because the “trailing spouses” of nurses and teachers are highly interested in the gaming industry.

And if we now post all of the gaming jobs, our network of employment websites is representative of the entire marketplace.  And everyone wins. 

Well, it is that time of the year again.  It is teacher recruiting season.  Since 1989 a group of business professionals have gathered to assist the Clark County School District (CCSD) with the recruitment of new teachers to Las Vegas.  The “We Care” program is a business-education partnership spear-headed by the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.

I have had the good fortune of being the chairperson for the We Care committee for the past two years.  Our committee always gets together in the beginning of the year to asses the challenges we face for the upcoming school year.  After you hear about the recruiting challenges CCSD faces each year, you will look differently at what you consider to be recruitment challenges within your organization.  Let me give you some basic facts:

• Each year CCSD builds an average of 12 new schools
• This year student enrollments tipped 300,000
• On average, over 3,000 new teachers are needed each year
• Our local colleges and universities provide us with just 400
• The remaining new teachers must be recruited from other states
• The starting salary for a new teacher last year was $33,500
• The average new teacher can only qualify for a $139K home

As you can see, we have some challenges.  How do we overcome these challenges?  That is where the “We Care” committee comes in.  We have developed probably the most sophisticated recruiting system that allows ambassadors (local business professionals) the ability to volunteer their time to assist the human resource department of CCSD to recruit teachers. 

When an offer is made from the CCSD Applicant Tracking System, the prospective teacher is assigned an ambassador.  There is a likelihood that the ambassador is from the same home state as the new teacher, matched by the intelligence we developed within the system.  The ambassador works with the potential teacher to answer any questions that they may have to assist them in making a positive decision to relocate to Las Vegas.

What are the common discussion points?  Primarily they are “quality of life” questions.  What is there to do? Where do we live?  Do we eat at the buffets?  Is there life outside of gaming? And then there are the more serious questions of how is our healthcare system, education system, cost of housing and other cultural inquiries.

As you can understand, it sometimes is a tough sell.  One of the biggest selling points for us has become the “Trailing Spouse” program Recruiting Nevada has developed over the past few years.  This is another sophisticated piece of software developed to assist the husband, wife, partner or child of new teachers in finding gainful and meaningful employment.  We have discovered this is the number one area of concern.

The Trailing Spouse program conducts some candidate matching functionality and introduces educated and qualified family members to local employers.  Many times it is the job offer to the “trailing spouse” that allows the schools district to secure the much needed new teacher.  It is a true win-win situation for both the school district and the employer.

So after we refined all of our “Talking Points” to make sure that the information we provide to potential teachers is accurate, we learned that we need to do some recruiting of our own.  The We Care committee is in need of a few committed and passionate business professionals to assist us in this worthy cause.  It does not pay monetarily, but the rewards are much bigger.  It helps build a better foundation for Las Vegas.  Those 300,000 students will be our workforce in years to come.

I encourage you to volunteer your time.  If you don’t have time to offer, consider posting your jobs on NVJobSearch.com to assist in the “trailing spouse” program.  Please contact me with any questions you may have.  I know We Care – do you?

Anyone can host a job fair.  Many can attract thousands of jobseekers.  But, attracting the “right” type of jobseeker is the difference between a good job fair and a great job fair.  And there is a clear difference.

Opportunity Boulevard Winter Job Fair 2007, held last week at the South Point Casino, attracted over 2,200 jobseekers.  That attendance number is impressive.  But what is more impressive, are the demographics of the attending jobseekers. 

 Let me share some preliminary demographics:

• Over 2,200 jobseeker attendees
• 1,656 Pre-registered before the event
• 447 of those pre-registered were out of state jobseekers
• 117 of the preregistered were healthcare professionals
• 107 were nurses
• 113 pre-registered were educational professionals
• 93 construction and engineering professionals
• 73 accounting professionals
• 61 technology professionals

The reason we highlight the skilled professional is those are the hardest to attract to a job fair.  And those are the skill sets most needed in Las Vegas today. 

Our job fairs are not just about bringing a bunch of unqualified jobseekers in a room to set them loose on a trick-or-treat fest (with your giveaways).  But rather a true recruiting event so you walk away with qualified hires, not just a stack of resumes.  Just ask some of our exhibitors.  One hospital hired six new nurses.  Now that is big!

So next time you choose to attend a job fair, consider your options.  You can partner with the NEWS – Your Community Newspapers, Recruiting Nevada, NVJobSearch.com NVNurses.com, NVTeacherJobs.com, NVEngineeringJobs.com, NVTechnologyJobs.com, Nevada Broadcasters Association, Las Vegas Publications, Clark County School District and many, many other supporters.

Would you rather attend a job fair where the registration line looks like this:

Or a recruiting event, where job seekers are dressed to impress and looking for a career:

Where-oh-where do they all come from?

Each month Nevada registers between 5,000 and 8,000 new residents.  Enquiring minds want to know “From Where?” 

Well, we surely are not the DMV or the Census Bureau.  But we do maintain the most relevant data for recruiters.  And that is – “Where are the skilled professionals coming from?”

(Drum-roll…………………….)

And here are the 2006 results:

Not much different than 2005.  Michigan took a big jump from #7 to #2.  With the auto industry getting pummeled that is no surprise.  What is surprising about this statistic is we do not target the automotive industry.  These searches are either the spouses of automotive workers or professionals of industries that once supported the automotive industry.

There you have it.  You now know where to spend some of your discretionary advertising dollars.

If you want more detailed reporting for your particular industry…..contact us. 

Nevada is a relocation destination.  There is no denying that.  The workforce that we need to attract ‘today’ – does not live here yet.  Nevada has boasted an unemployment level under the national average for many years.  Currently we have been hovering around 4.0%.  In the HR world – 4.5% unemployment is natural….and comfortable for most economies.  When we dip below that 4.5% unemployment level – we are beginning to employ people that we would not normally consider.  Most of which are unemployable.

The talent that is needed in Nevada – nurses, doctors, teachers, engineers and other professionals – don’t live here yet!  It is our job to attract them.  We need to sell the quality of life Nevada has to offer…..the weather, economy, entertainment, dining, shopping, outdoor sports….. the list goes on.  Why do you think Nevada has been the fastest growing state for 19 consecutive years?