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.
"Detroit is quickly emerging as one of the nation's best kept secrets when it comes to technology, Internet and mobile-related jobs," said Josh Linkner, CEO and managing partner of Detroit Venture Partners, a Detroit-based high-tech venture capital fund co-founded by Dan Gilbert, Quicken Loans' founder and chairman.
"We know that there is a great deal of talent inside of Yahoo, especially in marketing and web development, and we're encouraging those who have been impacted by job cuts to consider Detroit as the next stop in their career," he said in a statement Monday.
Skip Simms, senior vice president of Ann Arbor SPARK, a business incubator and talent portal, said the Detroit businesses' overture might appeal to the recently laid-off engineers, particularly if some of them have roots in Michigan and might be predisposed to consider the state anyway.
And the offer is another way of promoting Detroit and Michigan as a tech-friendly environment, he added.
"The P.R. value is going to be excellent," Simms said. "It's just another vehicle for us to get the word out what a great environment Michigan has."
Whether the appeal works will depend, on course, on the Yahoo engineers' perception of which area offers more opportunity. California's unemployment rate in February was 10.9%, well above Michigan's 8.8% jobless rate. But for the Silicon Valley area around San Jose, Calif., the metro jobless rate was 9.1%, better than metro Detroit's 10.2% rate.
Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher99@freepress.com
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