How a city, not a company, hosted the biggest booth at SXSW job market

Dive Brief:

It was a city, not a corporation, representing the biggest career opportunities for attendees of the 2017 South by Southwest recruitment event (SXSW), held March 11-19 in Austin, Texas.
The Atlanta Metro Chamber of Commerce, together with its ChooseATL initiative took recruiting to a whole new level by occupying the largest real estate at the event — by 200 square feet.
ChooseATL executives said more than 2,000 job seekers visited their booth during the event, boosting partner confidence that many available area jobs will be filled because of the effort made at SXSW.

Dive Insight:

Each year, there are hundreds of job fairs bursting with recruiters eager to hire up-and-coming talent. However, the biggest and best opportunities exist in regional job fairs like SXSW.

How did a city, not a company, become the largest job advertiser at this year's SXSW event? Atlanta leaders have come together to strategically create 10,000 new jobs and established a critical partnership with local companies through the ChooseATL initiative. Connecting with young talent is vital at this time when skills shortages are making recruiting challenging.

Kate Atwood, executive director at ChooseATL, and Grant Wainscott, Senior Director of Technology Ecosystem Expansion at Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce told HR Dive their goal was to expose job seekers to the culture and quality of life offered by the Atlanta metropolitan region, along with highlighting the rapid growth of local organizations in the technology, entertainment, and entrepreneurial markets. SXSW offered them “the perfect place to kick off the recruitment high season,” they said.

While Atlanta has always been a leading city for industries, like many parts of the U.S. it has also felt the sting of socio-economic strain over the last decade. The Atlanta Metro Chamber focused on supporting the greatest concentration of companies in the mobile technology, transportation, health care, and other tech clusters that are forming in and around Atlanta. An additional boom in the Atlanta metro region in music and film production projects was spurred by generous tax breaks.

Skill shortages have dogged many fast-growing industries, which in turn has put enormous pressure on talent recruitment. Knowing where to go to find top talent is a critical part of the equation.