Kansas City receives new tech-focused jobs board

Businesses both big and small looking to fill technology positions in their companies have a new outlet to find talent: KCnext’s new job board.

In conjunction with Kansas City’s inaugural Techweek, the KCnext team announced Chute Wednesday to help area businesses in their recruiting efforts — whether they’re members of the tech council or not.

Millennials have shed light on a paradigm shift when it comes to job hunting, KCnext president Ryan Weber said. Instead of identifying the company and the job that the candidate is after, millennials are looking for the city, with everything else to follow. But when they figure that out, there’s an increased emphasis on company culture, community involvement and location.

Chute helps highlight those issues that matter.

Each company that’s a KCnext member has the option of creating a company page that highlights what the company chooses, including social media plug-ins. Almost all companies include a passion for Kansas City. It’s about attracting the talent pipeline to their company, but also to Kansas City, Weber said.

“We’re trying to attract [talent] with a tool like Chute, and also retaining them with the lifestyle and culture of the city that’s already been in a renaissance since the recession,” Weber said.

Users can search Chute by company or by the type of job.

KCnext has only marketed the current minimum viable product to a few of its member companies ahead of the launch, including five that were guiding KCnext through the site’s development, including Cerner, Garmin, Sprint, DST Systems and the Federal Reserve Bank.

Tech council member companies have the option to publish a company page and post each job listing for $199 per 30-day active post. Non-member companies don’t get the company page, but can still submit their tech job openings for $399 per 30-day active post. Weber said KCnext membership for companies with 25 or less employees is $500 annually.

“A recruiter can cost up to 27 percent of the first year salary,” he said. “So we look at this as a drop in the bucket.”

All of the money generated from Chute goes right back into KCnext’s efforts for additional programming and marketing.

KCnext Marketing Director Kaitlin Motley said the campaign around Chute in Kansas City is about building value for employers so they’ll use the platform for hiring, too. Otherwise, all marketing is external. The KCnext team is taking Chute to Techweek New York in October, and potentially to Techweek Los Angeles in November to focus putting Kansas City on the map of tech professional attendees.

Weber said companies polling job candidates who didn’t accept a position are telling him the No. 1 reason they turn down an offer is because they aren’t sure there will be another opportunity if they move to Kansas City and the job doesn’t work out.

“This is a place for employers to point them to and say, ‘you’ll be just fine in Kansas City,’” he said.