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If you're a Millennial in search of your next great career opportunity, consider moving to the Midwest, suburban Michigan or even the rural South to seek your fortune. While research from the Boston Consulting Group shows that almost 60% of Millennials would be willing to relocate abroad for a job, plenty of U.S. employers that don't boast NYC, LA or SF HQ say they're struggling to recruit and retain young talent . With Millennial unemployment and underemployment now a seemingly entrenched fact of life for this generation, it may be time for opportunity-hungry young professionals to pull up Google Maps and expand their (literal) horizons.
Detroit might be enjoying a resurgence, but Vladimir Gendelman has had trouble getting young professionals to consider career opportunities at his firm, Company Folders, which is located 50 minutes outside the city in a town of 3000. "Attracting young talent to our location is difficult because we are in a very small town with no other tech companies," he says, citing open marketing and social media positions as ones his company has had particular difficulty filling. For Businessolver's Marcy Klipfel, the issue is one of perception. Describing Businessolver's Des Moines, IA home base as a "hidden gem," she says that selling the locale to young applicants relies on figuring out what a potential hire's lifestyle priorities are and emphasizing how they can meet them in the Midwest.
"When recruiting top young talent from larger cities, we customize our approach based on where they are in their life. For those who have started families young, we appeal to our wonderful public school system and low cost of living. For singles, we point to our very livable downtown with vibrant restaurants and entertainment coupled with little traffic/transportation headaches. Des Moines is a very livable city; your whole paycheck won’t go to rent and you’ll have spending money left over to do the things you enjoy."
Like Businessolver, other growing companies are also getting creative in order to fill their geographically-induced Millennial staffing gaps. Some, like Company Folders, work on creating a workplace culture and offering amenities they believe will attract young workers, while others take more drastic action. Zach Olson founded Bookly.co in St. George, Utah (population: approximately 80, 000), but quickly realized the type of talent he'd need to grow the online bookkeeping service was unlikely to be found in or wooed to the small city.
"As soon as the first resumes started rolling in from our job postings, it was clear we were in for an uphill battle. I was totally blown away by the number of resumes applying for positions that had zero relevance (education or experience) for the roles. We tried to continuously revise and specify the role descriptions and where we were advertising, but nothing changed the bulk of what we were receiving. Don’t get me wrong, St. George is a beautiful city with tons of potential, however, the talent pool to build and scale a startup is just super limited."
Olson's solution was to move his company to Salt Lake City, which boasts a much more developed startup ecosystem. It's a move he hasn't regretted, with his new location giving Bookly.co easy access to plenty of young talent fresh from the University of Utah and BYU.
Recent Oxford grad and Fargo, ND native Scott Gabrielson ran into similar sourcing difficulty when recruiting local designers and developers for his soon-to-launch fashion brand, Oliver Cabell. "It is nearly impossible to find developers who have worked at VC-backed companies. Many of the tools and services leveraged by startups in larger cities such as San Francisco have yet to reach Fargo," he says. Rather than a potentially pricey relocation or recruiting from out of state, he turned to the internet to assemble a virtual team of freelance designers to power his business.
For those Millennials who are willing to resist the siren song of major urban centers to consider more far-flung locations, talent-hungry employers say they stand to make greater career gains and enjoy better work-life balance than their peers who are competing for entry-level opportunities in the big cities. As Klipfel puts it when touting the close-knit business culture of her company's hometown:
"Young professionals can have a larger impact on their organization and the community in a place like Des Moines. It’s easier to rub shoulders with CEOs and company executives -- it’s very easy to network in Des Moines and people want to help. I know CEOs in town who will take time to meet and mentor young professionals and not just those who are in their own companies."
Adds Olson, "I know I'm totally biased, but a lot of younger workers don't have to look much further than their backyard to find the right opportunity."
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