This year Fortunes #2 Best Company teamed with Detroit’s Best High School – Cass Tech, for a day of fun, learning and hands on experience with Quicken Loans, Fathead and In-House Realty.

Walt Wiessner and our great security team made special Quicken Loans badges for the students that merged the Quicken Loans logo with the Cass Tech logo.

When the students arrived they were given a badge and escorted to our board room to start the morning. Students watched a video that is used by our recruiting team before hearing from our CEO, Bill Emerson. Bill was great (no, I am not sucking up because he is our CEO), he encourage the students to tell him how they felt about the video and to ask questions…and they did. Good questions that were well thought out and they gave their feedback on the video.

The students also got to meet Kumari Ellison from recruiting, who talked to them about their resume and handed out her card and told them she would review there resume and give them pointers. What??? The students were amazed that she had given out her direct number and email and was willing to help them at anytime.

Next, the students left with their groups which consisted of marketing, human resources, Fathead, In-House Realty, mortgage bankers, our leadership team, technology and one lucky student was able to shadow with Bill, who was busy with meetings all day, but Corey (Cass Tech Senior) didn’t mind. When I checked in on Corey to see if he wanted to see any other areas, he said “I’ll stay with Mr. Emerson…Bill”.

As a part of the JA Job Shadowing program, a high school is selected to shadow with a CEO. Corey was the lucky student from Cass Tech, he will have to write an essay on what he learned and did with the CEO of a company. Corey’s essay, along with other high school senior’s will be submitted to JA for the chance to win a college scholarship. I can not wait to read Corey submission.

At the end of the shadowing all the students returned and had lunch with us and received Community DIFF bags and Cavalier hats from our president Patrick McInnis, who talked about what he does, how he got started, the importance of education and following your dreams.

With all this information swirling in their heads, I decided it was time for me to have some fun…With Pistons tickets in hand, I started asking questions about our company. When they saw the prize was Piston tickets the hands started to fly and students were conspiring on answers to insure they could go to the game together. No one left empty handed.

We ended the day with student from Cass Tech singing the 1-800-33Rock song, it was great! The best compliment we received was the following. “Most companies we shadow with will have us look over their shoulder and they really do not talk to us…but here we felt like we were a part of everything that was done, we felt important!”

If you read this and do not work for Quicken Loans, have some students come in and shadow with you. The students from Cass Tech found out that we have a lot different careers here that they were not aware of. Also, if you are in the Southeastern Michigan area, check out Rock Financial JA Finance Park at www.jamichigan.org. Also, if Quicken Loans sounds like a place you would like to work, check out our careers page at www.quickenloanscareers.com

When I look at the faces of the students that shadowed with us, I can not help but think about the future…the future that they will be in charge of – our next business owners, presidents, professors and government officials. I can help but smile, because I have truly seen the future and it doesn’t look too bad.