Workshop focuses on new-grad recruitment

At the same time that employers in northern Nevada worry about their ability to recruit skilled workers, college and university graduates are loading up U-Haul trailers and heading elsewhere to find jobs.

A free workshop next week on recruitment of collegiate talent marks an attempt to help businesses tap into the skills of recent graduates.

Gail Conkey, marketing director of the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada, says many companies in the region work occasionally with the University of Nevada, Reno, or Truckee Meadows

Community College and Western Nevada College.

Participants in the workshop, she says, will learn to develop sustained, strategic efforts to develop campus relationships.

Among the steps to be discussed, she says, are ways that businesses can build name recognition among soon-to-graduate students, ways they can build sustained connections with students and effective methods to advertise job openings on campuses.

A panel of students, meanwhile, will provide feedback about what they seek in employment opportunities.

The event is sponsored by EDAWN, Nevada Association of Employers, the Nevada State Society for Human Resources Management Council, Northern Nevada Human Resources Association, Sierra Nevada Human Resources Association and Ormat Technologies.

It runs from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Joe Crowley Student Center on the UNR campus. Registration is required through https://events.edawn.org/events/45. Organizers hope to draw business owners and managers as well as human resources specialists to the workshop.

Conkey says improved collegiate recruitment is part of a concerted effort to build a stronger workforce in the region.

Earlier elements included a revamped Web site, MyNevadaDreamJob.com, and a recruiting trip to San Francisco this summer to acquaint workers in the Bay Area with the employment possibilities in the Reno-Tahoe area.

EDAWN research with existing employers in the region within the past year has found that their top concern is their ability to recruit skilled workers.