Detroit Makes Pitch for Ousted Yahoo Employees

**begingri** · April-09-12, 03:38 PM

By Cameron Scott, IDG News

Quicken Loans and two affiliated Detroit venture capital firms have issued a call for the roughly 2,000 Yahoo employees who received pink slips last week to move to the Motor City to bolster the blighted city's efforts at revitalization.

The firms will set up initial phone interviews for interested candidates and follow up with in-person interviews at a Palo Alto recruiting event in May.

The companies claim that Detroit is experiencing a tech boom, pointing to Twitter's recent decision to open an office in Detroit, primarily to sell advertising to the automotive industry. Twitter will rent space in the M@dison Building, a converted theater that now bills itself as a tech incubator.

Josh Linkner, the CEO of Detroit Venture Partners, said there are 300 to 500 open tech jobs at Quicken Loans and other companies backed by his venture capital firm and Rockbridge Growth Equity, an equity firm run by Quicken CEO and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. Detroit Venture partners has put up a website called Valley to Detroit to support its efforts to bring Yahoo talent to the Motor City.

Continued at: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...employees.html

**Flintoid** · April-09-12, 03:40 PM

Oh Dan Gilbert, why don't we have a thousand of you. Awesome news!!

**iheartthed** · April-09-12, 04:07 PM

Two thousand more unemployed people? Sounds like the last thing Detroit needs...

kidding

**canuck** · April-09-12, 04:37 PM

Excellent! Gilbert certainly has shown the way back to town hasnt he?

Erase the word "Impossible" from our vocabulary.

Speramus meliora alright.

**detroitpride313** · April-09-12, 05:28 PM

Originally Posted by Flintoid

Oh Dan Gilbert, why don't we have a thousand of you. Awesome news!!

Amen, I wholeheartedly agree!

**ismoakrack** · April-09-12, 11:50 PM

And people said there was no silver bullet for Detroit...Danny boys proving us wrong

**Wheels** · April-10-12, 09:11 AM

I don't get it? Why would you be happy outsiders are coming to take the only new jobs available in Detroit.

Sure they are hight tech but Detroit has people leaving to take jobs in other areas of similar nature. More could be trained on the job.

Detroit needs jobs for the people here now. I realize these are not your typical labor jobs Detroiters are use too but those jobs are not coming back and Detroit needs to adapt.

**motownmark04** · April-10-12, 09:26 AM

Originally Posted by Wheels

Detroit needs jobs for the people here now. I realize these are not your typical labor jobs Detroiters are use too but those jobs are not coming back and Detroit needs to adapt.

Detroit needs jobs - good, high-paying jobs - now.

A Silicon Valley-type job is not the type of job that Detroiters are used to. That is very true. But these are the very jobs and industries that Detroit needs to go after.

"Import to Detroit."

Bring those jobs here, and the spin-off will create more jobs [[labor, service, etc.).

**iheartthed** · April-10-12, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by Wheels

I don't get it? Why would you be happy outsiders are coming to take the only new jobs available in Detroit.

Sure they are hight tech but Detroit has people leaving to take jobs in other areas of similar nature. More could be trained on the job.

Detroit needs jobs for the people here now. I realize these are not your typical labor jobs Detroiters are use too but those jobs are not coming back and Detroit needs to adapt.

I think the reasoning is that these people would come to Detroit and create jobs. Just about every major city that's paying attention right now is fighting to attract that tech entrepreneur talent in hopes of being home city to the next big thing.

New York has made no secret of their intentions to siphon some of that talent away from the Bay Area, going so far as to donate [[very expensive) land for a big name university to build an engineering campus in the city. Last year I attended an entrepreneur event put on by the University of Michigan's College of Engineering here in Manhattan and the mayor's office sent the head of the city's economic development department to speak.

**detmsp** · April-10-12, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by Wheels

I don't get it? Why would you be happy outsiders are coming to take the only new jobs available in Detroit.

Sure they are hight tech but Detroit has people leaving to take jobs in other areas of similar nature. More could be trained on the job.

Detroit needs jobs for the people here now. I realize these are not your typical labor jobs Detroiters are use too but those jobs are not coming back and Detroit needs to adapt.

Quicken has had lots of IT jobs available for the last year or two. I know because I work in IT and frequently check openings at other companies. If there were people in Detroit who were qualified and wanted these jobs, they should have gotten off their arses and applied.

**begingri** · April-10-12, 04:33 PM

Quicken Loans gets quick response to its bid to lure laid-off Yahoo engineers to Detroit

By John Gallagher

Detroit Free Press Business Writer

Quicken Loans’ overture to laid-off Yahoo engineers in Silicon Valley drew an enthusiastic response on its first day.

More than 7,000 visitors clicked on a website that Quicken and its related companies set up Monday to let the recently laid-off Yahoo workers know that Detroit businesses were hiring tech-savvy workers in the Motor City, Quicken spokesman Aaron Emerson said.

The website, www.ValleytoDetroit.com, allows the Yahoo workers to upload their resumes. The Detroit companies said they would begin sifting through the resumes and fly final candidates to Detroit for interviews.

http://www.freep.com/article/2012041...sey=nav%7Chead

**p1acebo** · April-10-12, 04:43 PM

Originally Posted by begingri

http://www.freep.com/article/2012041...sey=nav%7Chead

You beat me to it!

However, I don't like how it just say "7,000 clicks." It doesn't necessarily means there will be an actual response, or really tell us how many resumes were submitted.

**Red Devil** · April-10-12, 06:33 PM

The valleytodetroit.com doesn't have a mobile version [[at least not if you're using Safari). What a great way to show you're in the bush league. They also might want to use a sexier term than "IT Job". It's a cool PR thing to do, but I doubt they will get anyone to sign up unless they've got some midwest/Michigan ties.

**detmsp** · April-10-12, 11:30 PM

Originally Posted by Red Devil

The valleytodetroit.com doesn't have a mobile version [[at least not if you're using Safari). What a great way to show you're in the bush league. They also might want to use a sexier term than "IT Job". It's a cool PR thing to do, but I doubt they will get anyone to sign up unless they've got some midwest/Michigan ties.

Actually the issue here is that on an iOS device you wouldn't be able to attach your resume since apple doesn't give the user access to the file system. That's something I'd like to see apple improve in future versions

**Jason** · April-11-12, 12:03 AM

I think, maybe because of our manufacturing roots, we've gotten used to the idea that there are a fixed number of jobs available.

But jobs are a dynamic thing. Our local economy is more than GM deciding to hire or fire people.

The higher our percentage of smart adventurous people is, the better off our companies will be and the more likely new successful companies will be started, and the healthier our economy in general will be.