Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits

Arkansas: Off The Beaten IS Track

By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
Issue date: Dec. 9, 1996

Wal-Mart faces three major obstacles in its campaign to hire 300 IS staffers over the next nine months: location, location, and location.

Actually, there are a few other important factors holding back recruitment, such as the nationwide IT talent shortage. But as Wal-Mart tries to grow its application development staff in such a short period of time, the company's main challenge is to lure candidates to Wal-Mart's home base: n orthwest Arkansas.

"Just thinking about attracting that many IT people here in that time frame makes my blood pressure go through the roof," says Ken Young, who handles IT recruitment for Staff Mark Inc., a job placement firm in Fayetteville, Ark., 30 miles from Wal-Mart's Bentonville headquarters. "The biggest problem for Wal-Mart, and anyone else trying to attract people with hot technical skills to northwest Arkansas, is that everyone envisions the Beverly Hillbillies."

The perception is inaccurate--northwest Arkansas is considered attractive in such key quality-of-life areas as education and taxation--but Bentonville and environs are nonetheless a tough sell.

Staff Mark is not recruiting for Wal-Mart; the retailer does that itself to save on costs. In fact, Wal-Mart's overall conservativism may be a factor complicating the company's plan to hire 240 application developers and 60 telecommunications specialists. While Wal-Mart's IS salaries are competitive and technical specialists receive stock options and profit-sharing perks, the company offers no special incentives to relocate. "We have our own moving line that handles moves, and we'll pay for normal transportation expenses," says Sue Brann, people director for Wal-Mart's IS division.

Wal-Mart also doesn't allow telecommuting, offer sign-on bonuses, or participate in salary bidding wars. It also demands a lot from its employees: The "official" workday begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 5:30 p.m. Supervisors work half of Saturday. The company does, however, offer plenty of opportunities for advancement, and not just in IS. For instance, former CIO Bobby Martin is now president of the company's hot international division.

Wal-Mart focuses about half of its IT recruitment on colleges, mostly in Arkansas and neighboring Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas. The rest of the recruitment comes in the form of inter-nal job postings, national trade magazine ads, and online classifieds. Wal-Mart also participates in job fairs and may conduct one of its own , on-site in Bentonville, next year, Brann says. "We know this recruitment will be difficult," she says. "We can use any help we can get."

See related story: " Squeezing More Value From Data " or return to " Wal-Mart Ups The Pace "

Comments?

http://www.informationweek.com