A big problem: top Tar Heel employers discover one's size doesn't fit all when it comes to filling jobs.

• Author: McMillan, Alex Frew
• Position: North Carolina's largest employers

Last year, Plano, Texas-based Electronic Data Systems Corp. didn't even make BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA'S list of the largest employers in the state. But it's No. 59 this year, after adding more than 1,000 Tar Heel jobs, giving it 3,500, about half of them in Raleigh. The company, founded and since sold by Ross Perot, handles outsourced information-technology contracts and in North Carolina manages back-office functions for the U.S. Postal Service, Medicaid and BellSouth Corp. It's also, according to Southeast communications manager Dana Bolden, the biggest processor of ATM transactions in the country.

Finding that many employees in a short time hasn't been easy. EDS used to hire mainly computer programmers and people with data-processing experience. "In a perfect job market, we would just hire technical people, but there aren't enough," Bolden says. "We had tapped the existing job market." So toward the end of 1997, EDS started going to job fairs outside its industry, asking employees to refer friends for jobs, looking anywhere for warm bodies. It took nurses, construction workers, technicians and ran them through its training program, 15 at a time, for anywhere from three months to a year. At job fairs, EDS recruiters wouldn't just solicit the people who had come looking for a job, Bolden says. "We'd say, 'Look, if you have a friend, ask them to come and apply, and training is free.'"

Though EDS's build-up has been unusually rapid, most large companies trying to expand here face a similar problem. With the state unemployment rate at a seasonally adjusted 3.6% in October, a full percentage point below the national average, and even lower in the cities, it's hard to fill positions, particularly low-paying ones. It's a problem that won't go away anytime soon, with North Carolina's economy expected to continue growing at least through 1999.

Other employers take a similar strategy: Look to referrals from friends, job fairs, anywhere to attract employees, then try and think of ways to persuade them to stay with the company. EDS, for example, might start them in a call center handling inquiries from people such as owners of General Motors Corp. cars who are trying to figure out their satellite tracking systems. Then it prompts workers to get more training so they'll switch positions and move up the pay scale. "Once you're in the company, we encourage them to change jobs very often so they don't get bored," Bolden says.

For the state's largest employer, Food Lion Inc., it's not easy holding on to employees. "In the business we're in, turnover is typically high," says spokeswoman Tawn Earnest. "We're kind of in a state of emergency all the time." Last year 40% of its employees left voluntarily, the grocery chain reports. So the company taps the nontraditional work force, such as students and the elderly, and offers bounties when employees recruit a colleague. Food Lion's efforts have been paying off, as shown in this year's ranking. Its employee...