Utah hoping to lure engineers to state

State economic development officials are trying to get a pair of groups — engineers and site selectors — to look at opportunities in Utah.

A recent "soft launch" of a campaign to lure engineers to the state has been deemed a success, and a "hard launch" will take place soon. And site selectors, who are hired by companies to help find the best location for expansions or moves, are being targeted through advertisements running in trade publications.

The key component of the engineering campaign took the form of a "Here for the Holidays" newspaper advertisement encouraging engineers visiting Utah during the Christmas/New Year's season to consider relocating to the state. The ads ran in Utah newspapers plus one in Orange County, Calif., where Boeing recently had layoffs of engineers.

"So when the daughters and sons were home for Christmas, they could be kind of assaulted the entire time to move back to the state," Jason Perry, executive director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, said during a recent GOED board meeting. "It worked pretty well. We advertised in a few places, and it was really a chance for us to just gauge some interest out there."

"Utah invites you to explore our expanding jobs market," the ad said, adding, "Dozens of Utah companies have placed engineers at the top of their wish list this season. You could be one of those engineers!"

The ad encouraged people to send resumes to resumes@utah.gov and check out www.accesstotalent.com.

"This was a soft launch and gives us some metric to measure, especially in the marketing and advertising for our hard launch," said Clark Caras, director of marketing for GOED.

Perry said the soft launch yielded nice results.

"We got over 100 resumes from this campaign — from everywhere — and these are amazingly qualified engineers, all willing to explore the job opportunities in the state of Utah," he said. "Over 25 of those have already gone to the Web site and applied for jobs here in the state."

Perry said the state will market itself as an attractive place not just for native Utahns but for others from out of state. The submitted resumes are being shared with companies needing engineers. A "hard launch" is expected to occur in the next month or two, allowing people to submit resumes and for companies to post their job openings.

"The concept difference here is that traditionally in the recruitment world, interested candidates apply for specific jobs," said Pat Vaughn, director of the talent access program for GOED. "And what we're really doing here is market the state as a land of opportunity, and so we're bringing engineers in to look at a vast array of opportunities, not just the one job."