Minnesota Upstarts Retool Middle Market’s Job Creation Engine

Ron White, a planning analyst with the Hennepin–Carver County Workforce Investment Board (WIB), likes to boast that the WIB places more Minnesotans in jobs using fewer government training dollars than any similar operation in the state — or maybe even the country.

It’s a boast now making waves across a variety of social media channels, after White recently echoed his assertion in a YouTube video — one of a number of Web-savvy promotions featuring White along with WIB chairman Tom Bodin and senior administrator Patrick Connoy.

According to White, his claim was intended to help draw attention to the success of the board’s enterprising ways. “I want people to take notice and try to do it better than we can. The end result will be more jobs,” says White, who just might have something to boast about.

Hennepin County’s unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the nation. According to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, the gap between the national unemployment rate and that of the county grew from 1.3 percentage points to 2.8 between 2000 and 2011. From 2009 to 2011, unemployment in Hennepin County declined from 7.6 percent to 6.1 percent, while the nation’s rate of unemployment decreased from 9.3 percent to 8.9 percent.

According to White, the growing gap has a lot to do with the board’s strategy, which views workforce and economic development through a single lens. Back in 2010, the WIB’s workforce development functions merged with the county’s economic development functions, which included housing, community works, and transit. The goal is now to help middle-market businesses retain and create jobs by increasing workforce skills and designing a more flexible approach when it comes to partnering job training with businesses.

“Very often, we find that companies of a certain size are having similar internal issues that are preventing them from making the next big leap. If we can just help them to overcome their challenges and grow again, they will soon be hiring some of our people,” explains White, who says that WIB management team members view themselves more as entrepreneurs rather than as government-sanctioned administrators.

While the WIB’s Web videos no doubt expose the Minnesota board’s inclination to march to its own drummer, they also reveal an apparent willingness to experiment and try new things. For example, White has recently helped to spearhead an initiative that allows recruiters to access presentations from qualified job candidates using their smartphones.

“First, we partner with recruiters to find out what job candidates they’re looking for. Then we find the job candidates and work with them to upload materials other than just a resume,” says White, who says that the WIB is now helping job candidates better showcase their skills by capturing them performing certain tasks on video.

“Candidates can graduate from a short-term training class, but it’s not always entirely clear what they’re capable of. Take welding: There are some specific types of technical welds that can set candidates apart,” explains White, who says that the WIB is able to push out candidate videos to recruiters via smartphone.

“We started out just focusing on healthcare- and IT-related hiring, but now we’re expanding it into manufacturing and hospitality. We figure that there’s a broader application in these areas that are common across the country,” says White, whose latest video endeavor is intended to help job candidates themselves do the boasting.