What makes a ITintheD.org Pink Slip Party different?

The dynamic hosts and their ability to provide top-quality recruiters and staffing agencies who know how to help get Detroit back to work – in a casual, relaxed atmosphere that promotes successful networking.  No speakers, no sales pitches, no multi-level marketers trying to get you to buy soap…this is the group that we always wanted to find and couldn’t, and so we created it.

Bob Waltenspiel is the consummate sales guy, with a decade and a half of experience in selling products, commodities and services all up and down the information technology food chain.  Dave Phillips is the geek that’s been pushed into management roles over the years, but still keeps his hands dirty so that he can translate from board room to server room and back.  Given that people always joked that they knew just about everyone in the metro Detroit area between the two of them, it was a no-brainer to take that network and use ITintheD.com to start helping people make connections.  Jeff Mackey has over 15 years of industry experience; he’s done the programming thing and the management thing, and is good at explaining the technical to the not so technical.  He also keeps Bob and Dave from killing each other.

Together, they try and make sure that everyone gets what they need out of every event.  The job seekers need to find the right recruiters, and the recruiters need to find the right candidates.

More than that, we might just actually help you. We’re not going to mince words here – we’ve been to several other events that have billed themselves as “Pink Slip Parties”, and let us assure you that we are not:

…a single recruiting company holding an open house.  We’re not even recruiters.

…an institution trying to get you to buy something. We don’t sell training. We don’t want to print business cards for you. We don’t care who your long distance carrier is or where you buy soap.  We don’t sell anything.  Well, if you happen to own a data center, Bob might try to sell you some HP hardware for it, but that’s about it.

…going to get your hopes up with false expectations. If six recruiters say they’re coming to our event, we’ll tell you that six recruiters have said they’ll be at our event.  If we have no idea what the hell we’re doing, we’ll tell you we have no idea what the hell we’re doing.  We value our reputations, and we know that word of mouth has a lot of power.

We know that there are a lot of events out there…some even billing themselves as “Pink Slip Parties”…and that’s all fine and good (like mentioned above, it’s not like we own the name or the concept or anything), but we’ve heard from a lot of folks that they’re confused.  It’s actually really pretty straight-forward: if it doesn’t say ITintheD.com, it’s not one of our events…and ours are a little different.

But don’t just take our word for it…

“Hi Dave,

It was great running into you & Jeff at the Pink Slip Party Wannabe event. Since there was only ONE IT recruiter there, it would have been a huge waste of my time had I not had the opportunity to share a beer & a few laughs with the two of you! Thanks in advance for your help & I look forward to seeing you again at the next ORIGINAL Pink Slip Party in a few weeks.”

– S.M.