One of the biggest challenges when relocating or expanding your business is building your workforce. You may be able to check all the boxes on your business wish list (such as location, tax incentives, utilities), but none of that really matters unless you can find the right employees.
Until you can recruit and hire qualified people who are ready to work, you don’t really have a business.
Many small and medium-sized businesses may not be equipped with an adequate human resources staff to launch a major recruiting campaign. And for companies new to an area, the problem is compounded even more by a lack of information about the local labor market.
How do companies overcome those kinds of obstacles? By collaborating, cooperating and calling for reinforcements.
Here are some interesting findings from a July 2016 Employer Needs Survey, conducted by the NC Works Commission. According to the survey, the recruitment tool used by 85% of responders is “word of mouth.”
Word-of-mouth?
Why would any business just "wing it" when it comes to finding top talent? Well, business operates at top speed these days and maybe it’s just harder to find time to draft a strategy. Maybe some companies don't want to spend money running help-wanted ads online and in the newspaper. Maybe word-of-mouth is just easier.
Word-of-mouth requires little effort. Word-of-mouth is dirt cheap.
But word-of-mouth is no way to build your workforce. Especially when North Carolina has made it so easy for companies to recruit and screen their next hires. The state offers a wealth of services and resources provided at little to no charge to employers.
Chief among them is the NCWorks Commission. The Commission recommends policies and strategies that enable the state’s workforce and businesses to compete in the global economy. It's designated as the state’s Workforce Development Board under the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
Their mission? To ensure North Carolina has an innovative, relevant, effective, and efficient workforce development system that develops adaptable, work ready, skilled talent to meet the current and future needs of workers and businesses to achieve and sustain economic prosperity.
North Carolina companies can take advantage of the NCWorks' pro-business partnership between education and workforce agencies. Not only are they working to advance and develop the skills of the workforce, but they are experts at helping provide your business with a pool of qualified workers.
If you, or your business, is looking to relocate or expand to North Carolina, here are seven ways that NCWorks Career Centers can help:
1. Get the Word Out
Small or medium-sized companies often don’t have the HR staff to tackle a major recruiting effort. NCWorks will help you develop a coordinated communications and outreach strategy that includes the creation of job opportunity public announcements and press releases. They will even help target media outlets to help you reach the right kind of applicants. You’ll be able to monitor job postings and track applicants on NCWorks.gov.
2. Connect Online
In addition to posting with online job sites, you can post your job openings online for free at NCWorks.gov, where they’ll be seen at over 100 NCWorks Career Centers across the state. Posts are also automatically sent to community college and university career centers. And instead of posting and waiting by the phone, you’ll have free access to NCWorks.gov, where you can:
• Search for candidates based on their skills, work experience, and resumes
• Post job listings and review potential candidates
• Find and review resumes of candidates that have the qualifications you need
• Access real-time labor market data specific to your area and your industry
3. Go Beyond Help Wanted Ads
Need some video? The North Carolina Community College System’s Learning Solutions Center can produce videos and e-learning multimedia to help with your recruitment efforts. In addition to creating a unique message that can attract and inform potential employees, the video can be featured on the NCWorks website, which draws nearly 3 million visitors a month.
Here's a sample of their work highlighting North Carolina Aerospace Industry Training:
4. Job Fairs and Campus Events
NCWorks Career Centers can help you arrange special events, including job fairs and on-campus recruiting. Their insight to the local labor markets and connections to the community will help target talent pools and give you the opportunity to meet your potential workforce face-to-face.
5. Application Review
Let someone else start the process for you. NCWorks Career Centers can manage your applicant flow through web-based screening, using candidate questionnaires or telephone and face-to-face interviews with candidates. You set the job requirements and professional employment consultants will screen applicants to ensure that you only speak with qualified applicants.
6. Room to Recruit
Need some more space? Keep your business moving smoothly and avoid the expense of renting extra space. Community college and university career centers, as well as NCWorks Career Centers, can provide facilities and office equipment to conduct job fairs, applicant interviews, group orientation and training.
7. Testing, Testing
NCWorks Career Centers can even help during the final stretch. Once you’ve narrowed your selections, the experienced staff can make a variety of recommendations regarding test selection and implementation. They’ll cover every aspect including: employment testing issues, test locators, medical exams, achievement tests, aptitude tests (including the Career Readiness Certificate), personality tests, selection of non-biased and reliable tests, drug tests, polygraph testing and criminal background checks.
With all that help available at little to no cost to your company, you can see how it makes sense to partner with NCWorks. Because whether you collaborate with them on a lot or a little, the end result is bound to be better than what you would get with a handful of classified ads and waiting for "word-of-mouth" to make your telephone ring.
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