Building Their Boilermaker Pipelines

The October event, held at the Convergence Center for Collaboration and Innovation in West Lafayette, was designed to strengthen the state’s workforce pipeline by promoting strategies to build relationships with students, raise student brand awareness of Indiana companies, increase employer knowledge of graduate wage and placement data, and connect employers to university resources.

“I’m excited about what this event is accomplishing,” said Robert Gallardo, Vice President for Engagement at Purdue. “In its second year, the number of participants grew for one reason: it provides small and medium-sized employers valuable information on accelerating student engagement, from hearing from engineering students themselves to seeing an expo of completed student-corporate projects. That plus the personal touch and in-person connections help them take their talent pipeline efforts to the next level.”

Photo: John Bings (Crane), Stephanie Fike (Beam, Longest and Neff), Kelly Kacprowicz (Avalign Technologies), Jaime Dominguez (MPI Corp), and Kathleen Plenus (Modern Forge Indiana) meet students from student organization Scope Consulting at the Build Your Boilermaker Pipeline guided expo. Credit: Lena Kovalenko.

University + Community Engagement

Build Your Boilermaker Pipeline is hosted by the Office of Engagement’s Central Indiana and Southeast Indiana regional engagement office directors, Virginia Vought and Julie Rigrish. Purdue’s regional engagement offices engage with Indiana communities to identify local needs and opportunities where the university can collaborate for positive impact.

“We listen to what’s important to our community stakeholders, we look at what resources Purdue has to leverage, and we bring people together,” said Vought. “No one will be surprised to hear that workforce is one of the top areas of concern across the state. As Indiana’s land-grant university, we have a lot of resources to leverage in that area — and more than 52,000 students in West Lafayette alone.”

The Office of Engagement is a part of the Office of the President’s partnerships team and connects the university with communities and individuals in partnerships to make the world a more equitable, resilient and prosperous place for all, at home and across the globe. The Office fosters reciprocal relationships with external partners, leveraging university resources in teaching, research and engagement to fulfill Purdue’s land grant mission.

“Events like Build Your Boilermaker Pipeline help us meet our land-grant mission to leverage Purdue resources for partnerships that strengthen the state of Indiana,” said Rigrish.

Photo: Build Your Boilermaker Pipeline was developed and hosted by regional engagement directors Julie Rigrish and Virginia Vought. Credit: Lena Kovalenko.

The Local Advantage

While companies of all sizes participated, this brain gain/retain effort was created with Indiana’s small and mid-sized enterprises – which make up the vast majority of the state’s employers – in mind. Indiana companies lacking the recruiting infrastructure of the largest out-of-state employers that travel to recruit Purdue students have something perhaps as valuable – a local advantage. The event’s fireside chats, panel presentations, engagement expo, and networking sessions made this message clear: opportunities abound across campus for Indiana employers to use their local advantage to build relationships with in-demand, Indiana-trained engineering talent.

The local advantage was evident in discussions on increasing student engagement with Indiana employers. Partnership opportunities in capstone, course, and learning community projects; partnerships with student organizations; and workplace-based learning experiences are all more readily accessible to employers just a drive away. Purdue panelists agreed that the employers who use their local advantage to frequent campus and build brand awareness and relationships with student groups over time experience significantly greater recruiting success than their peers who visit campus once per year, for a career fair alone. 

Opportunities to create a hyper-local advantage were on display at the Convergence Center, a facility that provides industry partners a front door to Purdue and an opportunity to hang a shingle on a physical, year-round, on-campus space. Kyle Richmann, talent acquisition manager for Lafayette-based manufacturer Wabash, shared with Indiana companies that the office they created at Convergence for student intern and course project teams supports their rapid-growth internship and graduate recruitment program.

Photo: Representatives from 27 Indiana companies met with potential student organization, course, and learning community partners at the mid-day guided expo. Credit: Lena Kovalenko.