The Real Deal

By Sharman Egan Lagniappe columnist

A year ago, I wrote about Mobile’s brain drain problem. What’s brain drain? Essentially, it’s the tendency for well-educated young Mobilians, the so-called “creative class,” to high-tail it to Birmingham, Atlanta or other cities far removed at the first opportunity, taking their talents and energy with them (you can read the original column at www.lagniappemobile.com; 9/13/06). This is a problem – a big problem. According to experts, cities need plenty of creative classers to thrive.

So why do they leave? According to Tim Parker, founder of Mobile Area Young Professionals Association (MAYPA), the problem is a lack of good jobs in Mobile.

Parker graduated from Auburn University last May with a degree in business administration. Having grown up in Mobile, he wanted to return after graduation but, like many of his fellow Auburn graduates, he didn’t think he could find a good job here. Then he started picking up on the new Mobile vibe-companies moving in, existing companies expanding and real estate doing well in spite of the meltdown in other areas of the nation-and he decided to give it a try. He wound up landing a good job as a project manager with a real estate development company out of San Francisco, but he describes the experience as a “struggle.”

Parker says his friends from college, especially those who grew up in Mobile, are apprehensive about the job market here. In fact, his friends from Mobile have a more negative perception than graduates from other areas. “They’ve seen the struggles other people have gone through and they’re less likely to come home,” he said.

Parker’s self-described struggle was his main motivation for starting MAYPA. “I wanted a resource for both young professionals looking for career opportunities and firms looking for candidates,” he said. When he discovered a similar organization in New Orleans, he was off and running. The new group has good momentum – after just one month, it already has three dozen members with an average of one new member a day.

Great minds think alike, apparently. Two weeks after Parker launched MAYPA, the Mobile County Commission introduced a similar effort dubbed Come Back Home to Mobile. The two projects are alike in one key aspect: both are designed to provide a resource for connecting job candidates, especially younger Mobilians, to employers. Like MAYPA, the Come Back Home campaign relies heavily on a Web site, www.comebackhometomobile.com.

Job seekers can go to the site and upload their resumes. The resumes are reviewed by a county official and matched to open positions at organizations such as Austal, ThyssenKrupp, Bender Shipbuilding, the Alabama State Docks and the USA Mitchell Cancer Institute. The developer of the site says there are jobs at all levels, with a variety of skill requirements.

The Come Back Home campaign includes a 30-second TV commercial to be broadcast locally and a print ad that will run in selected markets including Atlanta, Birmingham and Houston. Total cost of the campaign is $250,000.

Why run ads locally if they’re trying to reach people who live outside Mobile? The key message in the TV spot is “When your children call, tell them it’s time to come back home to Mobile.” As a former marketing consultant, it seems strange to me that a large (and presumably expensive) part of the campaign is targeted at parents of job candidates rather than the candidates themselves.

But it’s hard to argue with success. The goal of the program is 10,000 resumes uploaded to the site. That goal is based on the need for 10,000 new employees in Mobile County, according to those involved in planning the campaign. After less than two weeks, 2,000 resumes have already been uploaded.

In spite of the similarities, the motivations behind the two efforts are quite different. While Parker was prompted to start MAYPA because of a lack of jobs in Mobile (perceived or real), at least for candidates with qualifications similar to his, the Come Back Home campaign is designed to address the opposite problem: a shortage of job candidates.

What does Parker think about that? “I’m interested to see how it will all pan out,” he says. “People are having a hard time finding jobs in Mobile out of college. I’d like the message to be, ‘we’re already here and we need more jobs to be available.’ “

Why the disconnect? It could be a matter of timing. Some of the new jobs the county is touting are just now becoming available, and others won’t be available for another year or so. Parker may have graduated a little too early to see the demand county officials say exists today and will be even larger a year from now.

Whichever side you come down on-not enough jobs or not enough candidates-it’s pretty exciting to see two concerted efforts to bring back “our best and brightest,” as Commissioner Mike Dean refers to them.

If you’re a member of the creative class, check out MAYPA at www.maypa.org, even if you’re not looking for a new job. While Parker’s main goal is to help young professionals network for jobs, it’s also a great general online community for creative classers, with an event calendar, news and discussion groups. If you’re the parent of a creative classer (or anyone looking for a new job) and you want them back home, tell your kid to check out the Come Back Home Web site.

Sharman Egan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact her at Sharman@SharmanEgan.com.

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