Winnemucca recruitment road show lacks legs

An innovative and energetic plan to recruit workers to rural Winnemucca ran afoul of reality.

"No one declined, but no one stepped forward," says Bill Sims, coordinator at the Humboldt Development Authority.

The plan which won a $10,000 grant from the Nevada Commission on Economic Development a year ago outlined a traveling job fair.

The road show, complete with a video and polished brochures, would take its story to metropolitan areas where workers might hunger for good jobs and a small-town lifestyle. It's unlikely, Sims said then, that a simple job fair in Winnemucca would have met the community's needs because potential new residents weren't likely to drive to the middle of Nevada for a job fair.

Last week the commission granted Humboldt a one-year extension to the workforce attraction grant.

While all the area's industries are hiring mining, contractors, hospital, retail; all are booming Sims failed to find half a dozen companies willing to commit employees' time to the road show.

"Even our board members are engaged in their own businesses," says Sims.

Another reality check: Was $20,000 (the NCED grant matched by $10,000 from Humboldt Development Authority) enough to cover the advertising required to let people in targeted communities know the road show was happening?

The Nevada Department of Employment Training and Rehabilitation, meanwhile reported that it couldn't find any Western markets with a surplus of workers. Sims began to rethink the concept.

More realistic ways to spend the grant, he says, might include advertising in target markets, building a Web site featuring job openings, or paying to post on existing job sites such as monster.com or jobs.com.