LAS VEGAS – The Clark County School District (CCSD) hires more than 3,000 new teachers each year, and more than 70 percent of those teachers have “trailing family members” looking for work.
To help aid families relocating to Southern Nevada for employment, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce established the We Care Committee, which works to support teachers as well as their family members, as they move to Nevada. We Care was formed in 1989, but in 2003, it began forming partnerships throughout the Las Vegas Valley to help the help family members of teachers find gainful employment in Southern Nevada.
One such program is the Trailing Spouse program, which was developed to work with Southern Nevada’s business leaders to help family members of much-needed teachers find employment. The Trailing Spouse program encourages employers to give special attention to resumés submitted by family members of new Clark County School District teachers relocating to Southern Nevada.
Recruiting Nevada not only developed the Trailing Spouse Program for the We Care program and the Clark County School District, but is now implementing this program with many of the area hospitals.
“Without more nurses and teachers, we can’t grow and thrive as a community. It’s a fact. The Trailing Spouse program helps to solve Nevada’s nurse and teacher shortage, which impacts all of us,” said Doug Geinzer, chairman of the We Care Committee. “More nurses and teachers will move here if their spouses have job opportunities as well. This program gives Southern Nevada an edge over other communities vying to hire these same needed professionals. This program allows those industries to increase their volume of applicants, allowing employers to become more selective in their hiring practices, which trickles down as a value and benefit to individuals and families who live and work here.”
The Trailing Spouse Program distributes family members’ resumés to hundreds of top employers in Southern Nevada, who also have access to a searchable database of those resumés.
The program was initially formed as a joint partnership between the business community and the school district. At first it was offered to teachers once they had already committed to working in Nevada. However, because of the program’s effectiveness and popularity, it is now offered as part of the pre-application process and has become one of the biggest benefits offered to incoming and potential teachers by CCSD.
“One of the biggest ‘deal-breakers’ for a teacher relocating to Southern Nevada for a job is if his or her family members can’t find rewarding employment in our market,” Geinzer said. “The Trailing Spouse program has been so effective for us that CCSD officials now pass out flyers for it as they recruit on college campuses.”
Geinzer, founder and president of Recruiting Nevada, is also the publisher of Nevada’s largest network of employment Web sites. All employers advertising job openings with Recruiting Nevada on its main job board, NVJobSearch.com, have access to the program’s database of resumés – a service many employers enjoy.
“Through the database, employers find and hire quality candidates in career fields across the board, which benefits all parties involved, including the community,” Geinzer said. “Filling open positions increases our standard of living. With today’s low unemployment rate, many of our most likely applicants don’t live here yet. And when too many jobs sit empty, excessive recruiting and retention efforts come into play. Costs then get passed along to the community through poor service or increased cost of service, and ultimately, an increased cost of living.”
According to Geinzer, most of the people who have taken advantage of the We Care program have college degrees. Some of the most recent candidates who have found jobs through the program include skilled professionals in the financial analysis, engineering, nursing and insurance industries.
Family members of teachers also receive a free weekly newsletter that delivers job opportunities in their specific area of expertise as part of the program.
Recruiting Nevada diligently works on the frontline to strengthen Nevada's economy by constantly recruiting new employees to Nevada via the Web. Publishing the state's largest Nevada-specific network of employment Web sites, Recruiting Nevada attracts jobseekers in career fields across the board to Nevada job postings on NVJobSearch.com.
For more information on Recruiting Nevada or to find open jobs in Nevada, visit RecruitingNevada.com or call 702-240-4100.
Programs help families of relocating teachers, nurses find employment
By: Melissa Rothermel
Source: Imagine Marketing
2007-04-24
