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Employer Quotes
The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Engineering
They are talking about this topic: Experience & Credentials
The quotes below are about this issue:
Many employers, particularly those in the Northwest and Central economic planning regions, speak of how rural locations affect hiring practices. Most say they prefer to hire locally because they believe local workers will stay longer. Many rural employers say it is difficult to recruit the talent they need from within their own region. Additionally, it is often difficult for them to compete with engineering salaries in the Twin Cities.
| "You can find candidates, but they don't want to be in Nowhere, Minnesota. I think bringing kids that have left and gotten educated, gathering them back to our area is the biggest problem." | Central |
| "We're finding similar results when trying to recruit. It comes down to location." | Central |
| "Employer 1: We focus on the five-state area when we're recruiting: North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Employer 2: I would agree with that. Employer 3: We do, too." |
Central |
| "Local is better, if they've been in the area. But, really, that's kind of where we recruit from— the five state area. Certainly, we've gone further out than that but generally the five states." | Central |
| "We have a few [out-of-state colleges] looking for us. That's worked to some degree. It seems as though the individuals that are going to South Dakota and North Dakota for school, they're interested in rural. It just appears that they're more interested in the rural." | Central |
| "I think the other part of recruiting people to rural areas is their spouses and whether there are job opportunities for them. I think the area sells itself if you go maybe a 150-mile radius. I think our area sells itself as family-oriented and nature and agriculture and all those kinds of things." | Central |
| "It's difficult because you have to have a job for that spouse as well. Also, on the flip-side, if someone is not family-oriented, they're going to ask, 'What do I do? What's my night life here in Willmar, Minnesota?' There isn't any. So, when you get someone from out-of-state Iowa that's been in a larger school, we're hearing that." | Central |
| "I'm still surprised with recent college grads' connection to home-base. When I was out to get my first job, I'd go wherever. You don't see that now. I think that's different than it may have been quite a few years ago, when you went wherever the job was." | Central |
| "It's a chicken and egg thing. We can't get the students here, so it really creates a battle when they can go to the cities and they've got options for hundreds of jobs, of businesses. The rural area here has a real struggle to tug them away." | Central |
| "My personal view is that they're more likely to come back when they start raising kids themselves. We can get some of those 30-year-oldish, 35-year-oldish back here. We're having some success with that. Initially, out of school, they want to go and run with the big dogs downtown." | Central |