Local tech advocacy group TechPoint is partnering with TMap, an Indianapolis startup headed by former Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle, and five blue-chip companies to bring far flung native Hoosiers back to the state to work.
The partnership—sponsored by Cummins, Eli Lilly and Co., GEICO, Raytheon and Salesforce—will include what they call a "red carpet" event on October for 25 top employee prospects who are considering a move back to the state.
Using its deep reach into Indiana’s tech community, TechPoint is scouring the country to find Hoosiers ex-pats who are currently working in the tech sector outside the state. To extend its reach, TechPoint is partnering with TMap, which launched in 2018 to bring talent to the state. TMap's has already identified thousands of people, including Indiana natives and alumni from Indiana universities, who have said they are interested in returning for the right job offer.
“TMap has developed a new tool that is revolutionizing talent recruitment across all industries and we’re thrilled to be putting it to good use for the tech community," said TechPoint CEO Mike Langellier said in a statement. “We’re also very excited to have great support from leaders like Cummins, Eli Lilly & Company, Geico, Raytheon and Salesforce.”
The five corporate partners will help underwrite the costs of the initiative, TechPoint officials said.
TechPoint has set up a web site for ex-pat Hoosiers interested in bringing their skills back to Indiana. But the new venture also has more proactive elements.
A “Wish you were here” social campaign was launched this week, and Langellier is inviting Hoosiers and Hoosier companies to “share the messaging.”
“Anyone with a lead on a great talent prospect can get involved in this effort. If we are to overcome our talent challenges, everyone is going to have to be involved,” Langellier said.
The highly personalized talent recruitment effort will include on-the-ground visits to areas of the U.S. where large groups of Hoosiers currently live. Indiana tech champions will take their case directly to prospects at these out-of-state gatherings. TechPoint and TMap officials are still determining which areas they will visit for recruitment purposes.
All applicants will be presented with job opportunities via the TechPoint Job Board. The top 25 applicants—as determined by TechPoint and TMap—and their guests will be invited to a Red Carpet Weekend in October, which will offer networking opportunities including meetings with potential employers and a series of events showcasing the recreational, entertainment and other quality of life benefits in Indiana.
“It’s entirely possible that some of the people we will attract won’t recognize Indianapolis when they come back to visit,” Langellier said. “We’re consistently rated as a great place to eat, to live and to play, and our tech community is a nationally recognized success story.”
The TechPoint-TMap partnership is a reunion of sorts for Langellier and Oesterle, who founded TMap after seeing studies that outline the state’s potentially dire employment situation. Oesterle founded the Orr Foundation in 2001 as a means to retain talented Indiana college graduates. Langellier is a 2004 Orr Fellow.
“Few people understand the importance of talent recruitment and how the entire community needs to work together better than Mike and his team,” Oesterle said in a statement. “We need to make sure our best and brightest know they’re wanted and needed here at home.”
TechPoint has long focused on talent recruitment.
“We know from experience that when non-Hoosiers visit Indiana and spend any time at all here, they want to be here,” Langellier said. “Former Hoosiers who already have an affinity for their home state just need a reason to come back, and we have hundreds of good-paying reasons.”
While Oesterle’s efforts are focused more broadly, TechPoint’s talent recruitment effort is a response to Indiana tech and tech-enabled companies’ difficulties with filling open jobs, a situation many industries are facing as the number of available workers shrinks due to Baby Boomer retirement and a slowdown in population growth.
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