FARGO (AP) - Wendy Hill and her husband were fed up with traffic, smog and other big city life. So he went on a monthlong Midwestern road trip to stake out new land.

"We had always heard quite a bit about the Midwestern lifestyle. And we wanted to go someplace where we wouldn't spend August breathing smog in the heat and humidity with seven million cars on the road," Hill said.

About the same time, Hill discovered that Microsoft had posted a job opening for a staffing consultant. She immediately called her recruiter, who asked her if she knew the job was in Fargo.

"When I told him that's why I applied, I could hear them in the background going, 'Ding, ding, ding, we've got one,'" Hill said, laughing.

Hill, 38, was hired as the Fargo campus recruiter about two years ago. Now she spends much of her time courting workers from around the country.

"I really haven't had anyone say, 'Are you kidding me?'" she said.

Fargo campus site leader Don Morton said recruiting employees to the company is similar to recruiting athletes to town, which he did as the North Dakota State University head football coach in the 1980s.

Getting the people to make the trip to North Dakota is the hardest part, Morton said.

"I remember when we brought in football players from out of state, they would come into Fargo with such low expectations. And they would just be blown away," Morton said. "The same thing happens to us now."