NWA Council Introduces Finding NWA Program

The Northwest Arkansas Council staff has created two new websites, in an effort to help attract both job seekers and new businesses to the region.

FindingNWA.com, part of the new Finding NWA program, aims to provide non-local job seekers with a one-stop location for information about career opportunities and life in Northwest Arkansas.

The site is also meant to be used as a tool for local corporate recruiters. In fact, the concept was conceived after discussions with some of the region’s largest employers, according to a press release from the council.

“… The overall program will continue to evolve as new needs are identified,” according to the release.

“One of our goals will be to make sure the recruiters know the newest information about the region,” Anna Clark, marketing and events manager at NWA Council, said in the release. “Corporate recruiters already do fantastic work, and we’ll do all we can to ensure that more job candidates who live far from Arkansas know about our region.

“Relocating to a new region for a job can be complicated and intimidating, and we want to help people ease into Northwest Arkansas,” Clark said.

Research shows that out-of-state individuals don’t know a lot about the region, except that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is headquartered here, and a few people identified it as the location for Tyson Foods Inc. and the University of Arkansas, according to the press release.

“We hear consistently from our region’s corporate recruiters that we need more effective ways to tell a cohesive Northwest Arkansas story,” Mike Malone, president and chief executive officer of the council, said in the press release. “The photographs, text, graphics, videos and statistics about Northwest Arkansas on the Finding NWA website provide a full picture of what our region is, and it demonstrates we’re headed in a good direction.”

The website content was guided, in part, by data analysis from DataRank. It identified key topics of discussion on social media about Northwest Arkansas, according to the press release.

That information also helped guide the development of another new website, NorthwestArkansas.info.

The site is intended to provide in one place all the information businesses that are considering opening in the region need to know. Company executives and site selectors can find business costs, workforce data and information on the region’s economy, in addition to amenities offered in the region’s cities, according to the press release.