Great Bend Area Community Employee Recruiter Reflects Upon Successful Inaugural Year with Continued Hope for Future

This time last year, the Great Bend Chamber of Commerce & Economic Development Board of Directors announced that Renee Richmeier would soon assume her position as the Great Bend Area Community Employee Recruiter (Great Bend ACER). That announcement was the result of a concerted effort between several of Great Bend’s major employers, the City of Great Bend, and area workforce experts.

Through a series of planning and brainstorming sessions, the group of individuals working together to solve Great Bend’s growing workforce issues unanimously agreed that the best way to draw people to our community was to bring in a full-time community recruiter whose main responsibility would be traveling to job fairs and plant closings to advertise the availability of jobs in the Great Bend area.

“We knew that something had to be done,” City Administrator Howard Partington says. “At the time, there were between 300 and 350 available jobs in the Great Bend area in dozens of career fields, but no employees to fill them.”

After several months in the planning stages, the search committee began reviewing resumes from several individuals interested in making a difference through the new community recruiter program. “We were looking for someone with a sales background, with the ability to travel, and most importantly, a heart for the Great Bend area,” Chamber President Jan Peters says. “We hit the jackpot with Renee. Her charismatic nature and approachability made her the perfect candidate.”

Richmeier acclimated to her new position quickly, and was soon busy at work meeting with area employers to figure out how she could help fill their available jobs. “My biggest challenge after assuming the ACER position was just getting the word out,” Richmeier says. “So many employers already had recruiting programs in place, and I just wanted to let them know that I was here to work with them to make the recruiting process easier.”

Shortly after the program was launched, it became evident that the jobs web site being used by the Chamber of Commerce was proving inadequate for the volume of resume’s and applications that were beginning to pour in. CentralKansasJobs.com was originally a partnership between the City of Great Bend and a group of volunteers for the Chamber of Commerce that was designed to create a one-stop-shop for individuals looking for jobs in the Great Bend area. However, because the web site was maintained by volunteers with little knowledge of web design, the web site quickly became outdated and defunct.

Richmeier recognized the need for a more efficient and modern way to manage available jobs in the Great Bend area, and got to work on creating a new CentralKansasJobs.com. Needless to say, with hard work, diligence, and the help of friendly professionals at one of the Chamber’s member web design businesses, the new Central Kansas Jobs site was launched in a few short weeks at the beginning of May this year. The new site lets Great Bend area employers, Chamber members and non-members alike, post their available jobs on the web free of charge. The web site is easy to navigate and easy to maintain. “The best part about our new web site is that I can maintain the web site much more easily,” Richmeier says. “Convenience and ease of navigation are important to job seekers when we’re competing with large jobs sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilders.com.”

Despite the many positives that were happening in the ACER program, there were some obvious negatives as well. A downtown in the job market created a huge shift in Richmeier’s responsibilities as a Community Recruiter. “We went from having over 300 available jobs in December 2008 to having just over 80 available jobs in May 2009,” Richmeier says. “The flip side of that seemingly negative circumstance was that we were now seeing a greater number of skilled applying than ever before - individuals with quality resumes.”

Since October 2008, Richmeier has received a total of 344 resumes, with over half of those being since mid-June. Richmeier’s duties include exhibiting at plant closings, universities, and community job fairs to recruit qualified individuals to fill available jobs. “Most of the jobs available right now are in health care and construction,” Richmeier says. “I get stacks of resumes every week from people all over the country applying for the jobs we have right here in Central Kansas.”

Despite a bleak economic climate at present, Richmeier has high hopes for the future of the ACER program. “I want to continue to increase the visibility of the program to all area employers and prospective employees,” Richmeier says. “In the upcoming year, I plan to see increased numbers of placements as employers come out of the recession we’re in. I hope to reach these goals by continuing to promote our unique program to employers in the area and attending as many career fairs as possible.”

Richmeier received her B.S. from the University of Wyoming in Natural Sciences and Math. After exploring careers in lending and management, she has spent four years in sales and marketing for Pfizer, Inc. before coming to the ACER program. Richmeier lives West of Great Bend with her husband, Doug, who works in the local cattle industry, and their two-year-old daughter, Savanna. She is also expecting another baby to join the Richmeier family in March 2010.

Richmeier’s office is located at the Great Bend Chamber of Commerce & Economic Development, 1125 Williams in Great Bend. To contact her about your business’ available jobs, email Richmeier at rrichmeier@greatbend.org, or call at 620-792-2401. More information about the community recruiter program is also available on the Chamber web site, www.greatbend.org .

Renee Richmeier
Great Bend Area Community Employee Recruiter (ACER)
Great Bend Chamber of Commerce & Economic Development
1125 Williams
Great Bend, KS 67530
620-792-2401