Former HHS Outstanding Senior and HDFS alumnus brings excellence to talent acquisition through Indianapolis-based Orr Fellowship

Written By: Rebecca Hoffa, rhoffa@purdue.edu

When Angel Prince graduated from Purdue University’s Department of Human Development and Family Science in 2024 as an Outstanding Senior, he had an Orr Fellowship lined up in Indianapolis with a full-time job accompanying it. Now on his final year in the program, Prince is gaining all of the program’s benefits while working as a talent acquisition coordinator at National Construction Workforce (NCW).

“In my role, I’ve been able to make sure people are on the right track, and every day I’m recruiting, so I’m really providing opportunities to people, especially from different career paths than what people might usually take,” Prince said. “That’s been one of the most rewarding pieces of my day-to-day. It’s been neat to just give people that little advice or nudge of like, ‘Hey, here’s what you can do with your skill set.’”

Prince, who majored in human services in the College of Health and Human Sciences, always knew he was going to go the human resources route but wanted to take the human-centered approach the college is known for.

“I’ve always been invested in HR, and I had two HR internships before graduating,” Prince said. “I knew I was very detail-oriented and administrative-oriented, so it was really great.”

What has your experience with the Orr Fellowship been like?

It’s pretty cool. You can either do three, eight-month rotational programs to add up to 24 months or you can have the same job throughout those 24 months, which is the duration of the program. I was contracted to be a talent acquisition coordinator for the two years. I just hit my one-year mark with the program this past June.

Each year, we also do a professional development activity, and we can either do a pitch competition, a case competition, or a nonprofit consulting project. Last year, I did the nonprofit consulting project. I got to be a part of Indiana Prison Writers Workshop, and I assisted with all of the grant writings.

How did you get connected with your job through the Orr Fellowship?

It’s a big speed-dating type of thing. You get invited after every step of the interview process. I think for my class there were about 1,200 applicants who had applied to the program across the state of Indiana and a couple of people from Ohio. There’s about four steps in the process, so you get invited back, and you have to reapply to each stage. Then, when you make it to the final stage, that is where you speed-date about four to five different companies. I had five interviews that day. In order to get a placement at a partner company, both you and the company have to match each other as number one. My Orr Fellowship class got about 87 offers, and I got partnered with NCW.

What is your favorite thing about your role at NCW?

I work in the HR department as a talent acquisition coordinator. So, I do all of our internal hiring. I hire anyone from administrators to field support representatives to recruiters — a bunch of different roles. It’s focused on construction and industrial industries. It’s pretty dynamic.

I also oversee our entire internship program. It’s a 12-week structured internship program. It’s super fun to do a lot of professional development. We’ll do a lot of community involvement. We volunteered for the Martin Luther King Community Center. We’ve also packaged food for Gleaners Food Bank here in Indianapolis. My role has quite the scope of things.

What would you say has been your proudest moment or accomplishment since you left Purdue?

Honestly, it has been being part of the Orr Fellowship just because I actually knew that I had a full-time job before I even knew where my internship capstone was my senior year. That was pretty cool.

What does the Outstanding Senior honor mean to you now, looking back?

It was an award that showed me the possibilities are endless. Especially graduating from a prestigious university like Purdue, I got the chance to realize that this is just one of so many awards I can get moving forward. It gave me passion to continue doing what I’m doing and impacting people’s lives.

How would you say your education from Purdue has helped shape your professional journey?

Be yourself. That’s the biggest thing with anything, from meeting new employers to just learning a new skill, putting my own twist on things. When I was an undergrad, I got a lot of experiences and got to try new things, and so I still try to branch out and do that now.