Then it hit me.  We put a lot of effort into attracting and retaining talent and we get one like this and ask, “Why does she want to move here from Georgia with all of this fantastic experience?”

If we believe our talent expansion efforts are working and our region is a great place to live, then we should not be surprised to get candidates like this knocking on our doors. Perhaps, these efforts are beginning to pay off and now we must think creatively how to incorporate these talented individuals into our workforce.

We have amassed the Roanoke Connect database (www.roanokeva.gov/connect) to over 2800 people (plus 300-400 that have opted-out) in the last 2 years with over 1000 of them coming from outside the region. Thus far we have been able to quantify 70 persons getting jobs locally through this online matching process. However, this is only a couple percent of those who contacted us.

As we are cleaning the database, I am beginning to realize that the window of conversion with some of these people when they joined our database (unsolicited) is slowly fading.

It’s obvious the demand is there from outsiders to live in the region, and the supply of certain jobs is also ample, however it seems the connections are still not being made perhaps because skills needed are not an exact match of candidates. It seems we are getting closer, but there is still something holding us up and I cannot put my finger on it exactly. Can anyone finish this thought for me?

Thanks!