As the school year progresses and as graduation inches closer for some, TCC students are preparing to start their careers.
With a recession in the making, job opportunities may be scarce for students to find.
Dallas has an idea of how to open up the employment field by attempting to bring more corporate companies to the area.
However, their attempt at lobbying CEOs may be nothing more than buying them off with a cheap gimmick.
It’s something that Tarrant County and Fort Worth can learn not to do.
Dallas has its own application on one of the most popular electronic devices these days — the iPhone, not surprising when almost everything has a touch phone application.
However, this application will be available only to big CEOs across the nation. Announced by Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, 400 iPhones with a campaign application called “Bold Move” will be sent to CEOs pitching the idea that Dallas is a great place for big companies to move their business, according to an article in The Dallas Morning News.
The new icon will present a personalized video message from Leppert and Dallas CEOs like Blockbuster’s Jim Keyes and provide Dallas statistics suitable for each CEO’s city.
If a CEO is in California, information from the Tax Foundation might show that Texas ranks 43rd in overall tax burden while California ranks sixth, said The Dallas Morning News.
It’s all about getting people’s attention and changing their perception of Dallas, said Leppert in the article.
The only public attention for the idea may come from Dallas’ trying to entice companies with more than $500 million in revenue to come to the city. By offering phones totaling a quarter-million, Dallas wants companies to move workers and their families here if CEOs can find employees willing to move.
Dallas residents can at least be glad that the money isn’t coming out of their pockets. Dallas Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Dallas economic development group are paying the $250,000 worth of trinkets, the article said.
Though Dallas does have a clever idea about gaining employment opportunities by recruiting big companies to move to the DFW area by showing them low business costs and that more than 50 companies, including AT&T, have moved to Dallas in the past two years, there is more that could be offered here.
And that’s not giving CEOs a cruise. They probably already have their own yachts.
Tarrant County and Fort Worth should seize the idea of trying to earn more corporate businesses in the area, but go about it in a much more substantial way than just a trinket.
If Fort Worth or Tarrant County invited these big-time CEOs to see the landscape the city had to offer and the opportunities available from a more local standpoint than an iPhone sent through the mail, the city could show the strength of our workforce or the number of TCC students on the verge of graduating college, ready to start their careers.
This could provide the employment opportunity students are looking for instead of their scrambling to find available options.
Fort Worth or Tarrant County should learn from Dallas’ idea and show CEOs more than a video on a touch screen device that CEOs can afford multiple times over and that most people have and give students a better chance at life after college.
