Dallas recruiting brochure shows Houston skyline
Posted/updated on: August 29, 2024 at 3:41 amDALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports that Dallas wants to send out recruiting materials to attract candidates for a new city manager next month. But the search firm hired by the city to lead the headhunting must ensure it advertises the right city first. Several City Council members were puzzled Monday after reviewing a seven-page draft of the job ad brochure. The cover displayed downtown skyscrapers they couldnât quite place. âI hate this photo. I donât think itâs representative of Dallas,â said council member Cara Mendelsohn during an ad hoc committee on administrative affairs meeting. âAnd I had to look at it for quite a few minutes before I realized it actually was the city.â It wasnât.
The cover page from firm Baker Tilly says âCity of Dallasâ and displays the cityâs logo at the top. But a reverse image search of the photo shows that it features towers part of downtown Houstonâs skyline, including the Gulf Building, One Shell Plaza building and 71-story Wells Fargo Plaza building. City Council members identified a new cover photo that was âidentifiably Dallasâ among a series of other suggested edits for the final version of the booklet. âTo me, this looks old and dated,â said council member Jesse Moreno, representing parts of downtown Dallas. âWe have one of the best skylines in the country, and I think we need to be able to highlight that.â Other pictures inside the booklet had Dallas markers like City Hall, Klyde Warren Park and the downtown Dallas skyline. âThe first page is a cover page, kind of like the headline,â Edward Williams, a public sector executive recruitment director at Baker Tilly, told the council during the meeting. âThe idea here is that people see something they find of interest, and it captures their attention and invites them to continue reading and hopefully apply at the end of that review.â Nicole Berkeland, a Baker Tilly spokeswoman, told The Dallas Morning News on Tuesday that the firm appreciated the council feedback and is âworking with the city to update the cover to reflect the unique identity of Dallasâ. âThe selection was sourced from a trusted image library that had tagged the image as representing Dallas,â she said.