This is the first part of a multi-part series which will help communities attract and retain the next generation of workers. We know about 90% of MSAs are losing this coveted population and they are going to about 25-30 regions in the US. If you are not in that list, then what can you do to retain your brightest?

Here is the first suggestion based on my previous experience with the City of Roanoke, Virginia.

Create a talent hub capturing contact information of people who want to live in your community

You probably hear a lot of chatter about people wanting to return to your region (i.e. you go to cocktail parties and parents say their son or daughter is looking to come back and needs help). Typically, there is no system or database consisting of all people who are interested in returning or staying, as well as, a periodic communication tool alerting them of jobs.

We created a very simple front-end website. We sent out a press release, got several free offline stories. People began to talk about it and use it. Folks began to see it produced results and it spread to over 3000+ people who wanted to be in our region. There were zero dollars spent specifically promoting the website. Viral marketing and organic search engine optimization generated people from 46 states. We have been able to quantify 80+ success stories of people finding jobs through the database and probably countless others unknown to us.