Indianapolis Area Jobs

A recent article by the Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) highlighted multiple events and happenings in the Indianapolis area that point to the ever-growing entrepreneurial community here.

The article discusses Hackers and Founders, a monthly meetup that brings entrepreneurial-minded people together to hear three business pitches for high growth start-ups. Organized by Matt Hunckler, a current Orr Fellow, the monthly gatherings now reach around 200 people! From experienced entrepreneurs like Chris Baggott to young people such as current Orr Fellows and everyone in between, these meetups offer a chance to network, bounce ideas off one another, and learn about running a start up company -- all while enjoying food and drinks! If you're interested in starting a career in entrepreneurship or have an interest in the startup scene, this event is not one to miss.

The article also gave a shout out to the Orr Fellowship for its ability to bring young entrepreneurs to Indianapolis to work entry-level jobs in startup companies. This year, we've grown the Fellowship once again by taking nearly 30 new Fellows working for around 20 companies. By bringing some of the best and brightest recent grads to the Indianapolis area, the Fellowship is doing its part to keep fueling the entrepreneurial fire.

We're excited to see what 2011 has in store for each of us, the Fellowship as a whole, and the Indianapolis entrepreneurial community!

This morning, I was lucky enough to go to breakfast at Cafe Patachou with three other first-year Fellows and Scott Brenton, the Chair of the Fellowship Board of Directors. While we enjoyed some of the delicious food, we discussed all things Orr Fellowship and the current and future state of the program.

We discussed recruitment, which wrapped up on Friday when our 21 2011 host companies interviewed around 40 finalists and began their difficult decision making process. We're so excited to welcome our new Orr Fellows in the upcoming weeks as they accept jobs at some wonderful entrepreneurial companies in Indianapolis! 

We also talked about different initiative areas, such as service and our international trip! Our Fellowship class will be the very first group to get to go on an international trip at the conclusion of our two year commitment. Not only will we get to travel abroad to experience high growth start-ups in the international business community, but we will get to go with 20 of our closest friends! We get to work with our Board of Directors to choose the destination of the trip--who knows where we'll end up going!

The Orr Fellowship has a lot to offer any qualified college graduate. While we're no longer accepting applicants for the 2011 class of Fellows, it will be recruitment season before we know it for the class of 2012!

 So here I am writing my first ever blog, something that I never imagined I would ever do, and a million thoughts about a possible topic are running through my head. Throughout the next two years and roughly 24 posts I plan to blow all my readers minds and expose them to the world of Skip Tokar and his time in the Orr Fellowship. I will cover a myriad of topics including  The Orr Fellowship, Brightpoint (my company), Indianapolis, sports, and any other thing that might pop into my brain. This will be such a ground breaking source of information and wealth of knowledge that you will literally be counting down the days until the first of every month (or thereabouts) when my blog is posted. And while I may not have the supreme blogging abilities of people like my good friend Matt Hudson: http://blogs.wabash.edu/matthudson2010/ or http://en.wordpress.com/tag/matt-hudson/, I give will give a valiant effort in my writing and, with any luck, by the end of my two years I will be somewhat competent in my blogging ability (Note the last sentence, along with pretty much this whole paragraph should be read with a sarcastic undertone... just saying). 

Anyways, back to my original line of thinking for the blog. Since this is my first blog, I was pondering about all the other "firsts" that myself and all my other Orr Fellows (not to mention many of my recently graduated college friends) are experiencing this summer. Last year at this time I was worrying about finding a job. I was looking for high growth start-ups, Indianapolis job opportunities, specifically looking at the "best places to work in Indiana list", various leadership development/ rotational positions, and even some consulting and investment banking positions. I was lucky enough to find the Orr Fellowship, make my way through their recruiting process, and eventually receive an offer from Brightpoint. After evaluating all my options, I realized that the Orr Fellowship and Brightpoint offered a tremendous opportunity (more on this in a later post, that was a teaser by the way). 

Flash forward to today. I am now in my first real job after college, writing my first blog, and am now in one of the fastest growing Business Fellowships in the country. I am excited to start this new chapter of my life and am glad that I get to muddle my way through these next few "adult" years with over 25 other Orr Fellows who are in the same boat as myself.

So I hope you liked my first blog and I apologize in advance for any mistakes that I might have made (I blame my editor). I suggest that you keep track of my progress through the Orr Fellowship by marking you calenders for October 1st when my next blog hits the streets.

About this time last year, I was winding down my summer job and gearing up for my last year of college at Indiana Wesleyan University.  Like most college seniors, one thought came up over and over again in mind:

What am I going to do after I graduate???

Fast-forward twelve months and not only have I settled down in a new job, but I have been exposed to opportunities that I never thought I would be this early out of college.  I was able to get this job through the Orr Fellowship, an organization dedicated to the development and retention of Indiana students and natives.  The fellowship seeks to match college graduates with high-growth companies in Indiana.  I was fortunate enough to be hired on at Compendium, one of many entrepreneurial companies in the Indianapolis area.

Since the start of my job two months ago I have been exposed to many different areas within Compendium that a normal entry-level job may not provide.  The accessibility to executives within your company and the hands on experience that I've gotten in just two months has been both exciting and a great opportunity to learn.  

Not only do you get a great job with one of the fast growing Indianapolis companies when you are in the fellowship, but you get to go through the fellowship with several other recent graduates just like you.  I have developed good friendships with several people in the fellowship and it has given me an instant network of recent grads in an area where I would not have had that big of a network without it.

So if you are about to head back to school for your senior year like I was twelve months ago right now wondering how you are going to find a job and what you are going to be doing, be sure to consider the Orr Fellowship.  The opportunity to work at high growth start-ups along with the instant network of friends your age is a tough combination to beat.

The May 2006 issue of Human Resources magazine featured an article by Sommer Kehrli and Truy Sopp in which the authors attempted to share tips with older generations on how to manage Generation Y, a group roughly 80 million strong born after 1978 that began entering the workforce five years ago. Often the onus for change is on older generations. After all, we 'Millennials' are coming into the workforce whether current generations like it or not. Why should the 'new' be the ones to change our habits or learn new ones from the 'old'? 

An an entrepreneurial fellowship, we constantly strive to place distinguished college graduates into high growth start-ups. But at the same time, we also communicate the need for constant improvement and learning from industry leaders. Nobody is a subject matter expert anymore and while entry-level jobs in start-ups will help you become more knowledgeable about a specific area, it won't guarantee career-long success. To quote Dr. Thomas Mason, Professor of Economics at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, "to be successful at [an older] age, you need to keep learning." 

Need real world examples? 

Did you major in Public Relations or Marketing in college? Are you pretty confident writing press releases? Cool. BUT, looks like Presslift is a step ahead and that skill set will become mainstream in the near future.

Did you major in Web Design or UX in college? Are you pretty confident designing emails for your company's marketing team? Great!. BUT, Toddle is making email newsletter design and marketing a breeze.

Major in Finance? ChubbyBrain is democratizing your skill set.

Going to Law School? Legal Zoom has the basics covered.

Are you a scrapbooking professional? Yup...the semantic web has taken over this too.

EVERYTHING  is changing. High-growth start-ups and technology jobs in Indianapolis will KEEP changing. Being an expert today doesn't ensure anything for tomorrow. As Gen-Y'ers, we want to be mentored, use new technology, and be given the space to try new things. But we can be too confident, and in the process, atrophy our innate strengths of learning and development.

Your job won't be around forever, and if you don't keep learning, neither will you. The first step is accepting that a college degree doesn't make you an expert. The second is opening yourself up to learn skills, habits, and lessons from Generations past.

Oh...and sign-up to have your tree lugged through TREE LUGGERS or follow our tweets @treeluggers.

This American Life is a radio program out of WBEZ in Chicago that attempts to display what it is like to live an ‘American life’, complete with its dullness as well as its luster. Reporting is not done in the way we see on television or hear on more traditional radio. Rather, the producers attempt to place us into the culture of the topic area; the sounds bites are not ‘bites’ at all. They are actual, full, complete stories that connect the listener to a new set of experiences. This American Life attempts to make the events that mold our being (whatever that means), which makes understanding the experience more transparent. The radio program, at it's core, is about manufacturing an experience.

For example, attempting to paint the picture of Rome to my friends and family when I returned from a tour of Europe was excruciating. My pictures of Trevi’s Fountain did not nearly do it justice. My explanations of the white cliffs of Dover were juvenile. The only way in which my friends could understand the awesomeness of my trip would have been for them to experience it for themselves. In the absence of a shared “experience,” the narrative loses a little bit of sincerity.

The Orr Fellowship strives to create entrepreneurship careers that do more than simply provide post-graduate networking, entre-level jobs in startups, and an Indianapolis job opportunity; The Orr Fellowship strives to create a shared experience among Orr Fellows. Distinguished post-grad jobs are often about putting in time quietly on the sidelines while you wait your turn to play in the game.

This business fellowship is different. Jumping into fast growing Indianapolis companies is not something that most entry-level jobs in Indiana afford a fresh graduate. But entreprenurial companies need driven graduates to help contribute immediately. These companies look to Orr Fellows to help fulfill that need, providing a shared entreprenurial experience in the process.

Click here to find out how you can be included in this experience!

As we near Finalist Day when the class of 2010 Orr Fellows will make their decisions on whether to accept an offer to join the Fellowship, I think it's worth looking at who the Orr Fellowship is for.  Working with high growth start-ups takes a certain kind of person, and it's certainly not for everyone.  Here are a few characteristics that you might want to keep in mind.

The Orr Fellowship might be a good fit if you…

- Are graduating from an Indiana college or you’re originally from Indiana, and you have a strong GPA (preferably 3.5 and above)

- Enjoy working with smaller companies where everything is usually fast paced and everyone has to be willing to help out on various projects and different functional areas like marketing, finance, etc.

- Are someone that is eager to take initiative and make things happen rather than waiting to be told what job you need to do everyday

- Are interested in working in a variety of different roles.  Many Orr Fellows rotate through different departments or work for a company that’s small enough to require every employee to be multi-dimensional.

- Would like to have a network of like-minded peers that you can work on potential business ideas with and get together socially

- Want to work for a fast growing Indianapolis company, and have the ability to get to know executives from other high growth start-ups

- Want to define your own career path by taking on big responsibilities in a small company rather than being a number in an entry level program at a large corporation

The Orr Fellowship might NOT be the right program if you…

- Are hoping to travel and have opportunities to work abroad right away.  Although many Orr Fellows will have the opportunity to take smaller trips through the course of their job, the program is not designed to be travel intensive

- Need a boss to tell you exactly what to do every day.  The most successful Orr Fellows are the ones who take initiative and execute beyond what they’re expected to do

- Expect to be in charge of the most important projects from Day 1.  As an Orr Fellow you will likely have some less than glamorous projects at some point.  However, they’re only opportunities to over deliver and build your reputation so that you can lead major projects in the future

- Base your job search on finding the highest possible starting salary.  If you make it through the Orr Fellowship recruiting process you can find a better paying entry level job in Indiana or elsewhere.  The Orr Fellowship is not for people who are looking for the money now, but for students that are more interested in learning, establishing a network, and getting a great experience so they can advance their careers more quickly in the long term.

This is not a comprehensive list of characteristics that define the Orr Fellowship.  Hopefully it does give you at least a slightly better idea about whether or not the program is right for you.   Among business jobs in Indianapolis, the Orr Fellowship may be one of the best opportunities for college graduates.

Wow. ROTC (Reception on the Circle) last night was unbelievable. All of the current Fellows had a great time getting to know the candidates. I left thinking - how will the board of directors narrow the 60 candidates from last night down to only 20 in the end? I wish all of the candidates the best of luck putting together a personal summary and essay to submit on Monday, and can't wait to see who attends Finalist Day.  

With that being said, what I really want to do is address a few of the FAQs I got from candidates last night...

Q: How is the Orr Fellowship different from other Indianapolis job opportunities?
A: No other Indianapolis job opportunity compares to what the Orr Fellowship has to offer. You can go to work at a Fortune 500 company etc., but it will not give you the following:

• Instant access to Host Company executives and Indiana business leaders
• A social network of the other Fellows and alumni 
• Monthly business leader meetings and professional development opportunities
• A chance to reassess at the end of the 2 year Fellowship - go to grad school, change companies, start your own, or stay with your Host Company 
• and of course there are MORE reasons...

Q: How are Fellows compensated? 
A: I was asked this question more times than expected, but I suppose it's one that should be answered since as a Fellow you'd have an entry-level job in a startup (which is probably much different from anything else you're considering).

I will say that although the salary isn't glamorous, it's 'average' and most definitely an amount you can live on. You are paid by your Host Company, but all Fellows are paid the same amount. Benefits will vary depending on the Host Company you are placed in. Other business jobs in Indiana or entry level technology jobs may pay better, but if you look at the answer to the question above - you'll see what you're not getting with those opportunities. 

Q: Have you enjoyed your experience in the Orr Fellowship so far? 
A: YES! I've been given a lot of responsibility in a short amount of time. I work with executives on a daily basis. I have a group of friends I wouldn't have had without the Fellowship... I can't believe it's already been a year and a half. I'm going to be bummed when my Fellowship is over. 

TGIF! Have a great weekend everyone. 

Burberry might be one of the only clothing brands that was born out of a trench coat. The plaid patterns and distinctly British feel to the line of clothes, accessories, and bath items draws clear inspiration from Humphrey Bogart's famous Weasel and Stoat in films like “The Maltese Falcon” and “Casablanca.” Today’s New York Times, in an interview with Burberry’s 49-year-old President Angela Ahrendts, explains how despite their background in more traditional items, Burberry is attempting to “adapt the trench coat to the age of the Internet.” The article goes on to share Burberry’s plans for a social networking site called artofthetrench.com, which is specifically designed to market to younger consumers.

Should I repeat that? Humphrey Bogart is going social. The start of a beautiful friendship, indeed.

Is a business career in Indianapolis chic? Are local business jobs ‘smoking cigarettes in a fedora’ when they should be ‘drinking green tea and listening to their iPod’? Burberry is remaking themselves into a 21st Century company, pulling a classic brand into the Internet Age, and there are numerous jobs in Indiana attempting to do the same. Technology jobs in Indianapolis are beginning to reap the rewards from years of companies like Compendium Blogware, ExactTarget, Angie’s List and Canteloupe.tv carving out a niche for the region in internet search marketing and IT infrastructure. Indianapolis area jobs are thriving with jobs for recent grads helping organizations remake themselves into a 21st century organization. Click here too see a list of some of the Orr Fellowship’s Host Companies.

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, and Christmas around the block, it's difficult to believe that I've been working in the real world for just over four months now.  I can remember like it was yesterday what it was like to look for a job while still in college.  I remember how confused I was as an Economics major who knew I wanted to be in business someday, but you and I both know how vague of a career path business really is.  So what did I look for and how did I get to be where I am today?

Luckily for me, as a senior in college I knew that the economy was beginning to look grim and that the market was probably going to get rough.  To prepare myself for the tough situation, I did my due-diligence and began looking for a quality job opportunity to kick off my new career.  I realized that I lacked specific skills that most large companies would be looking for, and also that I would be looking for an entry level job just like the rest of my graduating class.  However, I knew that I wanted to live and work in Indianapolis as it has emerged a growing hub for small, technology start-ups.  One of my other interests throughout college was entrepreneurship, so I then began looking for entrepreneurial fellowships in the Indianapolis area.  What I soon stumbled upon was the Governor Bob Orr Indiana Entrepreneurial Fellowship.  To learn more about this graduate fellowship, I connected with current Orr fellows to learn more about what the program has to offer. 


So why did I choose to pursue the Orr Fellowship?  There were several reasons, but here are a few:

• the presence of a network of young professionals like myself to share ideas, concerns, successes, etc.
• the pipeline of Indiana business leaders that fellows are given the opportunity to interact and build relationships with
• the position and ability to join a small, start-up company and, through hard work, be able to make an impact within the organization
• knowing that I'm making a good investment in my career by being in an environment that forces me to learn as much as possible about running a small business

So has my first few months in the working world provided me with the opportunities and experiences that were promised to me by the Orr Fellowship?  The answer to this question is a confident "YES!"