Mitchell leaders using QR codes to advertise jobs inside Corn Palace

Jul. 28—The Mitchell Area Development Corporation is turning to the power of handheld devices to advertise job openings in the Mitchell area.

Inside Mitchell's biggest tourist attraction there will soon be several pamphlets with QR codes that anyone who has a smartphone can scan to see a complete list of the current job openings in the Mitchell area.

Geri Beck, CEO of the MADC and the Mitchell Area Chamber of Commerce, has high hopes for the approach, considering the Corn Palace sees around 300,000 visitors and tourists each year.

"It's all about letting the many tourists and visitors at the Corn Palace know that we have plenty of jobs available," Beck said during a recent quarterly report from her organizations to the Mitchell City Council. "We want to show people that this is not only a great place to live, but a great place to work and find a job."

Beck said utilizing codes has already proven to help drive more web traffic to Mitchell's websites that market the restaurants, tourist attractions and job openings. As of Wednesday, there were 76 job openings on the Chamber's job website.

"The digital marketing side of things seems to work the best for us," Beck said.

In the second quarter of the year, which spans from April, May and June, Beck said there were 31,322 views of the Chamber's job website.

She pointed to the social media posts that the MADC and Chamber uses to advertise the job site as the key method of what's driving people to the site.

"It's the posts that we're putting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn that are making people aware of the site and the jobs that are out there," she said.

City Council Vice President Dan Allen suggested placing the QR code pamphlets at gas stations and convenience stores along Interstate 90 near the Mitchell area.

Job openings in the city has been a hot topic lately. Unemployment in both Davison County and South Dakota was recorded at 3.3% as of June 2021, according to the state's Department of Labor and Regulation.

During the Mitchell mayoral and City Council races that took place in early June, several candidates stressed the importance of marketing the job opportunities available in the Mitchell area to help bring more economic growth and address the worker shortage. In the months leading up to the June 8 election, Mayor Bob Everson floated an idea to install a large kiosk in front of the Corn Palace that lists all job openings in the city.

"We have the Corn Palace that sees roughly 300,000 people in the summer, and putting a kiosk with all the jobs available would promote the opportunities we have to offer to a large number of people," Everson said at the time. "We have roughly two to three jobs for every unemployed person in the city of Mitchell. If one wants a job, they are there."