IT in the D!

You’ve heard it here and you’ve heard it from other media outlets: Young professionals are choosing Detroit as their destination for work – as entrepreneurs, at established auto and finance companies, and in local high-tech startups.

Several reasons have been presented for this surge in youthful labor, including favorable business incentives, cheap rent, and the focused attention of local businessmen such as Dan Gilbert, Peter Karmanos, and Phillip Cooley.

Each of these points is valid. Equally important is the shifting perception of the city.

No one denies or overlooks the enormous challenges for a sustained revival. Just writing that sentence conjures all of the highly publicized, easily visible signs of struggle – blight, vacant land, corrupt or dispassionate city officials, a tax base too small to support such a large metropolitan area.

Still, people see Detroit differently today than just two years ago. The city is attracting young professionals because they want to be part of this experiment of hope and hustle. They see an opportunity for career success, but also a chance to fight for something larger than themselves.

Check out two articles about some of the exciting work happening downtown:

• “Detroit: From Urban Blight to Tech Might” (B. Shactman, CNBC) - http://goo.gl/0BKoT
• “Don’t Call It ‘Ruin Porn’: Why Millenials are Moving to Detroit”* (R. Signer, Good.is) - http://goo.gl/kYr9Z

*Apologies to anyone offended by this title. You’ll have to read the article to understand the reference. It’s more innocent than it sounds!

Wow!

Thanks for the tremendous support of our LinkedIn group over the past week. With over 400 members there, “IT in the D” is poised to be your Go-To Source for All Things IT in and around Detroit. If you haven’t joined yet, follow the jump:

http://goo.gl/oAdCl

Welcome to the fun everyone! We’re looking forward to hearing your perspectives, opinions, and professional experiences in Detroit IT.

Here’s what you can expect to see on the blog, in our LinkedIn user group, and on our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ITinTheD):

• Features on businesses and people fueling a Detroit Renaissance through their work in the IT industry,
• Discussions of hot technologies and methodologies employed in Detroit-area IT companies,
• Timely advice and effective strategies for professionals in the work place and on the job hunt,
• Promotion of local technology and IT networking events,
• Coverage of paradigm shifts in technology on a national and global scale,
• And support of other local blogs, news outlets, and community organizations.

Here’s what you can trust will NOT be posted on our blog and social media sites:

• Specific job orders, either direct hire or contract work through a staffing firm,
• Requests to join or promotions of User Groups with a focus on recruiting/headhunting/HR,
• Solicitations for money or services,
• Or spam about job boards, hiring rumors, and the like.

Thanks again for being a part of this exciting new venture! Please join us over on LinkedIn if you haven’t already; share your thoughts in a comment to our discussion there.

“IT in the D” is hitting the road for a great IT event in Columbus, Ohio on Thurday May 24, 2012.

IT Martini (www.itmartini.com) is partnering with the COHAA (Central Ohio Agile Association www.cohaa.org) to host this event, focused on the strengths of Agile methodologies and how professionals and organizations can leverage Agile expertise into successful, profitable engagements.

For registration information, click here -> http://itmartini21.eventbrite.com/.

To hear about our sister office in Columbus, check out this brief interview with Vaco partner Jerrett Eiler -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGGs8b0PKpY.

“Everybody’s talkin’ at me / I can’t hear a word they’re saying / Only the echoes of my mind.” - Harry Nilsson

I imagine many of the IT professionals I speak with may feel this way. They’re bombarded with calls, emails, texts, and LinkedIn messages from recruiting firms, internal hiring teams at growing companies, and independent headhunters from 8 AM to 8 PM.

(Just writing and reading that sentence was exhausting. Imagine what living that reality must feel like!)

For many of the top players in the Detroit IT industry, this is a daily reality. Many are proactively seeking work, but others are either happy with their current work or passively entertaining offers. Whatever the case, so many conversations with lots of strangers could numb anyone’s mind, even the most extroverted of us.

I am not trying to say that we should feel sorry for folks who have so many opportunities. Rather, it is a reminder to myself that my calls, emails, texts, and LinkedIn messages must stand out - earn a smile with a compliment, present an exciting prospective job, and make them feel as if not responding would amount to throwing away a winning lottery ticket.

There have been a ton of instances when candidates tell me, “I’m not sure I’ve been submitted, but the client sounds familiar.” Or someone might admit, “Yeah, I was submitted for that position, but I can’t remember the name of the recruiter.”

I NEVER WANT TO BE THE GUY THEY FORGET. I WANT TO BE THE ECHO IN THEIR MINDS.

My goal is for each candidate to think of my opportunity first. I want them to weigh everything against what my client brings to the table. Each decision about other opportunties is weighed against my own.

Most importantly, my reputation is only as good as my last communication. Follow-up is essential to maintaining trust with a candidate and she better feel like her job search is the only thing keeping me up at night.

Regardless of how the process goes, every person I work with deserves to be current with their status as a candidate. If a client decides to pass on someone, I need to know the specific reasons why and present them back to him honestly.

As difficult as those conversations are, I owe it to the guy to be blunt:”Dude, you left your ear gauges in. What was your thinking there?”

(Don’t know what ear gauges are? I didn’t know the correct term either, but learned more here:

http://goo.gl/oc1y7.)

Hopefully, that example of client feedback is something I never have to relay.

*****

IT is a highly competitive industry and there is a shortage of specialized talent to meet a growing need. For some insight into the explosive growth for IT in Michigan, check out this Detroit News story from earlier in the week:

http://goo.gl/nkQHR.

In such a cutthroat marketplace, standing out as the recruiter who treated them right is crucial.

I’M THAT GUY.

Happy Thursday everyone!

It has been an exciting couple of weeks - busy, inspiring, motivating, and rewarding.

Tuesday morning, I joined Larry Eiler, the US Small Business Adminisitration’s 2012 Small Business Journalist of the Year, on his weekly radio show, Re:NEW Michigan (1290 AM WLBY) to discuss Detroit IT and the great people and businesses fueling Detroit’s resurgence. We talked about ”IT in the D” and the company for whom I work, Vaco.

You can listen to the interview here:

http://lucyannlance.com/?p=22746

More positive news today for Downtown Detroit as Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne and Quicken Loans CEO and founder Dan Gilbert announced the automaker would be renting space in the historic Dime Building at 719 Griswold.

Later this year, Chrysler will move 70 employees downtown, creating its first ever office presence in the city.

To celebrate the arrival of his new tenants, Dan Gilbert has rechristened the Dime Building as Chrysler House, saying of the partnership: “What a comeback company. It’s certainly fitting that they are here in the comeback city of the decade: Downtown Detroit. We’re just more than excited to have them here.”

Gilbert’s real estate company, Rock Ventures LLC, purchased the Dime Building in 2011, along with several other properties in his Detroit 2.0 initiative (see a timeline here: http://goo.gl/qXhRW).

For more coverage of Chrysler’s move into this historic building, read Michael Wayland’s article on MLive - http://goo.gl/Btej5.

Also, check out more positive news about Chrysler on Michigan Radio’s webpage here - http://goo.gl/QeUuo.

And, finally, for a little history of the Dime Building / Chrysler House, head over to Wikipedia - http://goo.gl/gRZIF.

With all the excitement swirling around a Detroit Renaissance, it could be easy to get carried away by the good news.

After all…

• Twitter is opening a downtown office in Dan Gilbert’s M@dison Building. @Detroit2_0 tweeted today that this building is now at capacity.
• Quicken Loans is hiring over 300 new IT employees, with the majority of them working in the Compuware facility.
• BCBS is in the process of relocating a large portion of their workforce from Southfield to their renovated offices in the RenCen. 
• Ford’s credit rating was returned by Fitch today to “investment grade”, after six years of junk status. Meanwhile, Chrysler and General Motors both reported solid earnings recently.
• Smaller tech and media companies such as Are You A Human, Mindfield, Detroit Labs, and DoodleHome are thriving.

This is welcome and inspiring news. We can rightfully claim each as evidence of progress in the city. But real, difficult, intricate challenges exist for sustained growth in Detroit. Among them: vast amounts of vacant land, blighted neighborhoods, a reduction in city services, the lack of a reliable public transit system, and simply put, a bad national reputation.

The 500-lb. gorilla in Campus Martius is the city’s leadership and finances. Some headway has been made on the consent agreement, but no one can say whether a partnership between the state and the city will be fruitful.

The important thing is that the city council and the offices of Mayor Bing and Governor Snyder are working together. This cannot be understated.For Detroit’s survival and revival, we need real partnerships and real community.

To learn about more collaboration among the city’s business leaders, read this article from MLive —- http://goo.gl/5HFNM. It details the panel discussion at today’s Detroit Business Conference, hosted by the Detroit Regional Chamber at the Motor City Casino.

As the panel moderator Sheila Cockrel noted: “Long-term, we really have to get out of the notion that there’s winners and losers. Everybody in every part of the city has to be a winner for the city to win.”

 

A few weeks ago, I wrote about adaptability and why anyone serious about success needs a repertoire of skills, especially in turbulent times. This past Friday, I had the pleasure of interviewing a local professional who has embraced change throughout her career, recognizing opportunities for growth when others might not have.

We began our conversation with her current work in the financial industry. She manages four principals directly and overseas a team of fifty contract and permanent employees in the implementation of leading edge IT technologies for the company.

“We’re working on something brand new,” she explained, adding with a smile, “And ‘new’ is always exciting!” Along with the enjoyment of her project, she relishes the ownership of building a team and overseeing their efforts toward successful deployments.

There are definite challenges or “barriers and battles” as she calls them. With tenuous revenues in a sluggish recovery, the question is usually one of finance – what can you do with less?

And this makes hiring the best possible team members essential. “I want logical and critical thinkers, those who refine their work approach with a methodology. They need to know the right level of communication and be able to package a message for peers, techs, and executives respectively.”

She doesn’t work well with people who need to be told what to do more than once. “I’m not good with coddling.”

I inquired if this is why she decided not to be a teacher after earning a degree in elementary education. She laughed and said, “No that was purely circumstantial and I did teach for two years.”

It was a career path she was enjoying immensely. In the summer after her 2^nd year teaching, to keep her mind fresh, she took a part-time job as an administrative assistant for a local company in the food and beverage industry. She expected some extra spending cash, but discovered she really liked the company’s culture.

“It was a family-owned business so there was a great sense of pride and ownership among the employees. The place had a totally motivating and positive atmosphere. At the end of the day, it was the people themselves that excited me.”

When the autumn arrived, school didn’t begin as usual. A prolonged work stoppage left her uncertain about her future in education. So when her summer-time employer offered a job as a full-time analyst, she seized the opportunity.

This adaptive decision launched a new career path for her. From the food and beverage industry, she transitioned into leadership roles in Detroit-area banking, automotive, and telematics companies.

She has faced the classic “Good Ol’ Boys” mentality in some of her corporate roles, but chooses to focus on the positives of those experiences. “I learned a lot of project management skills along the way.”

What does she think about Detroit’s path back to prosperity? While optimistic for the city and surrounding markets, she believes continued growth will be based on “the ability to attract and retain new employees. I actually believe that if we could position this area to be a nucleus for a well-educated, prolific employment pool, then businesses and people would be attracted to the region.”

Our conversation turned back to education and how the private and public sector could drive the creation of a Detroit professional pipeline. “Corporations in the area need to become more socially conscious and help build an education partnership in the area, starting with elementary schools. If we start advocating success at an early age, and push the kids through higher education in this area with the guarantee of a job in one of these companies in the area – word will begin to spread.”

It is a tantalizing idea and one worth pursuing for any company. And if an intrepid company and school district need a professional to help create this new curriculum, manage a teacher-industry expert relationship, and inspire school kids to become successful in Detroit business, I know the perfect person.

Last week, The Business Insider featured an article titled “What Recruiters Look At During The 6 Seconds They Spend On Your Resume” by Vivian Giang (http://goo.gl/QxwQp).    

I cringed when I saw it featured on LinkedIn.com.

Six seconds? Really?

I barely form thoughts in that amount of time, let alone review the vital information of a potential candidate.

However, according to the article, a study by TheLadders found that “recruiters spend an average of ‘six seconds before they make the initial ‘fit or no fit’ decision’ on candidates”. This statistic was determined by tracking the eye movements of 30 professional recruiters as they reviewed resumes.

In this incredibly short time, the recruiters were most focused on a candidate’s “name, current title and company, current position start and end dates, previous title and company, previous position start and end dates, and education”.

It may be my greenness in the industry, but I question the quality of these 30 recruiters when the initial “fit or no fit” determination was made faster than the construction of this sentence.

Certainly there are cases when this is appropriate. For example, if the position requires a certain educational background or certification and the candidate lacks it, a recruiter may end the screening abruptly. Or if a candidate’s work status disqualifies her for the position, a recruiter will definitely move on to the next resume.

But for most sourcing requirements, the process should not be this superficial. Recruiters do a disservice to candidates and clients alike if they cut corners when screening potential employees.

Unfortunately, this shallow sourcing will likely continue in many companies, so job seekers should keep the following suggestions in mind when polishing their CVs.

1.       A Clean, Well-Organized Resume Screams “I’m A Pro”!

Sure you better have the professional experience and skill set to back it up, but the first way to catch a recruiter’s eye is a stellar format. Make sure your work experiences are separated clearly and include employer names. Be sure to list specific work you’ve done at each position and stress the technologies employed in these efforts.

Make sure educational degrees and certifications are highlighted. Don’t be afraid to brag, either. Put in your outstanding GPA and the times you made the Dean’s List. These could be the deciding factors between you and another highly-qualified candidate.

2.       I Can Do That…Here’s Proof

A section that concisely details your skills and level of expertise with technologies is also advisable. Recruiters love to have their questions answered before the initial screening call. So if you have over 5 years of experience developing in the C# environment, make sure those who view your resume know so. Only include skills and techs you have actually used in practice as over-representing your knowledge can be as deadly as lacking relevant experience.

3.       Link It Up – Extending A Recruiter’s Screening

I am seeing more and more resumes with hyperlinks (embedded links to webpages) that allow viewers to open a candidate’s LinkedIn profile, see that person’s Facebook page, or connect to his personal blog. As well, savvy job seekers are now including links to their online portfolio of work and to published academic papers.

I’m a proponent of each example above. Recruiters and employers want to match a face with the resume and to the voice on the other end of the line. Willingly connecting them to your LinkedIn or Facebook profile shows personal pride in your appearance. Just be sure your mother would be proud of your appearance as well!

Sharing your personal blog, so long as its content is appropriate, gives a preview to your personality and speech patterns. Including a link to a published journal or to a repository of webpages you’ve designed demonstrates a track record of success.

4.       Ink Beats A Blank Page

Finally, if your resume is 1 ½ pages or 2 2/3 pages in length, consider including a final section to complete the page. Whether it is a list of references or achievements outside work, a recruiter is more likely to contact you if she recognizes a mutual acquaintance or shares your love of Thai food. 

Hope everyone has a great Monday evening and GO RED WINGS tomorrow night! Check back Wednesday for a new feature and be sure to follow @itinthed on Twitter for daily IT news and links.

It was fun to see the Red Wings prove their mettle last night with a gutsy win down in Nashville. The Predators continue to look like the sharper squad, outshooting and outskating Detroit most of the game, but thanks to Jimmy Howard’s stellar performance between the goal posts, the Wings take home ice advantage into Game 3 tomorrow at The Joe.

This evening, I’d like to share some great articles from the web, focused on the Detroit Revival. On Monday, we’ll have a new post for job seekers who want an inside look into the recruiter’s process.

Hope everyone enjoys the rest of this weekend and that the sun makes an appearance tomorrow!

ARTICLES ABOUT THE GREAT THINGS HAPPENING IN DETROIT

1.       Tim Donnelly profiles downtown Detroit businesses such as Are You A Human, Compuware, Detroit Labs and Quicken Loans in this Inc.com article: http://goo.gl/esyDI.

2.       Nicole Carter, also of Inc.com, examines Detroit’s advances in tech education and entrepreneurship: http://goo.gl/4OH8d.

3.       Kate Opalewski, writing for Pride Source, an LBGT-focused website, discusses the influx of young professionals into Detroit: http://goo.gl/MQtMo.

4.       The Detroit Free Press announced Tuesday that the opening of GSPEL (Ground Systems Power and Energy Lab) in Warren, a governmental facility focused on improved fuel efficiencies for military vehicles: http://goo.gl/WRRjL.