FindFloridajobs.com

Southwest Florida's employers have many more jobs available than people to fill them. We may not have the tightest job market in the country, but one would be hard put to find another where good employees are so scarce. The universal complaint of local companies is the dearth of job candidates. In a recent survey by the Collier County Economic Development Council, 100 percent of respondents listed finding good people as their biggest problem.

One attractive alternative is to look beyond our boundaries for great candidates who, in turn, would like a great place to live. Unfortunately, there haven't been very many good, inexpensive ways to locate and attract qualified personnel from outside the area. Until now, that is.

Gone to the Internet, everyone!

Happily, a brand new Website provides just the right vehicle to enable local companies to draw from a global pool of applicants. It's simple. It's effective. And it's free.

FindFloridaJobs.com has just been launched by Naples Internet Marketing Services, Inc. NIMS owners, Beck Miller and Marcus Zillman, are Internet pioneers in Southwest Florida. Both had successful pre-Internet management careers, but the lure of cyberspace proved irresistible. They recognized the commercial potential of the Web as early as 1994 -- and jumped in with both virtual feet. Among their heavily trafficked sites are naples.com, swflorida.com, palmbeaches.com, and botspot.com. The sites draw tens of thousands of visitors each month who are looking for information about our area whether to vacation or to relocate.

Findfloridajobs.com is the latest and most ambitious offering from Miller and Zillman. The site serves as a free link between local employers and job seekers worldwide. FFJ will certainly be effective within the local market where classified rates at the newspapers may leave employers with empty wallets. But the real plus of FindFloridaJobs.com is the access to job seekers worldwide. Because NIMS can leverage all of its successful sites to drive traffic to FFJ, this is not just a theoretical possibility. "Turning on the fire hose," is how Beck Miller describes the phenomenon.

Using the Web Site

** For the employer: After registering with the site, each company enters its own job listings, typically indicating the type of job, location, experience-needed, compensation, and expiration of the listing. Adding, deleting or modifying listings is a simple process. There is a direct link from each listing to the email address of the appropriate company contact. In addition, if the company has a website, FFJ also provides a hotlink so applicants can learn about their potential employers. The interface is simple and intuitive.

**For the job seeker: Potential employees select categories by Florida city, U.S. city, job category or company. They begin with a summary list and can then drill down to specifics of a particular job. Before committing, the job applicant can go directly to the web site of the company or companies that look interesting. It couldn't be easier to submit a resume online to just the right contact for a position worth pursuing.

Real World Experience

Henderson, Franklin, Starnes and Holt PA of Fort Myers is the largest law firm between Tampa and Miami -- and one of the oldest in Florida. Specializing in business law, the firm has a roster of 46 attorneys and 160 employees. Not surprisingly, says personnel manager Lynne Barber, there are two to three positions open at all times. The investment in newspaper and magazine advertisements to attract employees is therefore a significant annual expenditure.

Although the company was not accessing the Internet until November 1997, it didn't take long for Barber to discover swflorida.com -- the Web site of the Chamber of SW Florida. There were job postings on the site but they were not always up to date. Lynne Barber contacted Beck Miller in March1998 to discuss the idea of web postings. By then, Findfloridajobs was well under way -- and Barber volunteered to be a beta tester.

The results were almost immediate, according to Lynne Barber, even during the beta phase. The firm has already filled several positions from the results of their free postings on Findfloridajobs.com. "Finding a new source for job applicants is very exciting," says Barber, "because the job market is so tight in Southwest Florida."

Conclusion: It's local. It's global. It's easy. It's free. It works. Go for it.