When Jon Brickner received a job offer from Alticor, he knew the position was a good one. “It was exactly the work I was looking for, and the pay was right,” said Brickner, 29, a performance consultant in the Ada-based company’s human resources department. But one thing sealed the deal when Brickner considered making the move from Ohio to Michigan.
“The lake,” he said, referring to Lake Michigan. “In Cleveland, there were no beaches. I liked the urban life there, but I grew up in West Michigan, and I missed the beauty of the lake and the state’s natural environment. I knew I had to come back.”
Selling points like this are what job recruiters keep in mind when luring young workers to the West Michigan area. With competition from cities like Chicago and New York, how do the region’s human resources directors make the Grand Rapids area appealing to 20- and 30-somethings, especially when the city has a reputation that’s more “conservative” than “cosmopolitan”?
By promoting West Michigan’s natural resources, arts scene and nightlife, while emphasizing the fact that employees get all this in a community where they’ll have stable career paths and a safe environment for raising their families.
“West Michigan has some interesting challenges,” said Beth Kelly, managing director of Crandall/Partners, a Grand Rapids-based human resources firm. “We’re trying to create the image of a ‘Cool City’ with young folks, but sometimes the area isn’t seen as cool.
“However, we’re heading in the right direction,” she added
The Main Attractions
Kelly points to the condominiums under development in downtown Grand Rapids as one lure for young workers who want to live a contemporary lifestyle. Another lure is the array of entertainment options – bars, restaurants, concerts – available since the construction of Van Andel Arena 10 years ago.
When combined with opportunities for outdoor recreation offered by the region’s lakes, rivers and ski resorts, these outlets show that “the city is becoming a place where [young adults] can meet people their own age,” Kelly said. “It’s a vibrant place to live.”
Ellen Smith, director of regional development and physician relations at Spectrum Health, agrees, and adds that recruitment of young physicians by the West Michigan-based health care system has gotten easier since Van Andel Arena revitalized the downtown area. “It’s brought in a more diverse group of people,” she says.
Yet a cosmopolitan lifestyle isn’t the only factor human resources managers tout when drawing young adults to Michigan’s west coast. Cost of living is key, especially to potential employees who plan on establishing roots in the community, according to Cathleen Meriwether, director of lawyer recruitment at the West Michigan law firm Warner Norcross & Judd LLP.
West Michigan’s workers, unlike their counterparts in larger cities, can buy their own homes as opposed to living in studio apartments. “They also have a variety of housing available to them,” Meriwether said. “Grand Rapids has lofts, Victorian homes, suburban homes. And it’s a shorter commute [than what employees face in larger cities]. Here, you can own a car, and parking is a breeze.”
The region also has safe neighborhoods and solid school districts that make it an attractive place for young workers who’ll be starting families, Kelly said. She acknowledges that family friendliness might not appeal to young workers fresh out of school, but once they become established and look toward the future, “they make no plans to move anywhere else. Grand Rapids is a great place to raise a family,” she said.
A final lure that human resources directors use when drawing 20- and 30-somethings to West Michigan is the region’s variety of employment options. Young workers can find jobs with start-up businesses or Fortune 500 companies. With the former, “relationships are collegial, and growth is less a climb up the career ladder as it is a rock climb,” where workers make lateral or even backward career moves, but eventually find themselves moving their way up the hierarchy, Kelly said.
Coming Home
In addition, West Michigan has several large companies with solid work environments that draw young people to the area, Kelly says, offering Steelcase, Herman Miller and Cascade Engineering as examples. These companies often have opportunities for employees to get out from behind their desks, which Kelly said is another selling point in their favor. “Young workers want to travel, to interact with people in other countries. There’s so much more international flair than what we’ve seen before.”
When recruiting physicians for Spectrum Health, Smith deals with a small nationwide pool of candidates who are getting offers from hospitals in big cities and sunny locales. With Grand Rapids’ smaller size and blustery winters, Smith said, “we have to continually sell the opportunities and the community.”
Spectrum Health has the most luck attracting physicians who already have ties to the Midwest, Ellen Smith noted. But Cathleen Meriwether said that sometimes human resources staff at Warner Norcross & Judd work just as hard promoting West Michigan to former residents as they do in selling the region to those who have never lived here.
“If they’re from the Grand Rapids area but went away for law school, they’re many years removed from the area," she said. "We have to sell them just as much as we do the others.”
Often, those prodigal sons and daughters find that the West Michigan they left behind is different from the one that greets them now. Jon Brickner attended Hope College in Holland as an undergrad, but got his master’s degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and stayed in Ohio for a few years after graduating.
“I lived the ‘big city life’ there, but I’ve found that Grand Rapids has an urban culture too,” he said. “This really feels like my home now.”
Photos:
"Big Red" in Holland adds to quality of life in West Michigan
The Grand Haven pier is a major attraction for tourists as well as residents
Van Andel Arena was the engine for a decade long renovation of downtown Grand Rapids
Select Bank building houses hip condominiums
Photographs by Brian Kelly - All Rights Reserved