The Brain Drain Turnaround Playbook

4 Strategic "Plays" for Employers and Educators to help keep top talent in the Great Lakes.

For years, the Great Lakes accepted that ‘brain drain’ – having more working age talent leave a state or region than enter – was a given. For the best and brightest in the region, the lure of dynamic coastal cities, big-name companies, and high-paying jobs led to many more young people choosing to leave the region than stay. Our colleges and universities did a good job bringing young people into the region, but a poor job keeping them around after graduation.

But in 2026, the region is writing a new playbook. Cities, states, employers, and universities across the Great Lakes have taken action to chart a brain drain turnaround – through marketing campaigns, cross-sector partnerships, talent acquisition enhancements, and more. Early data shows these ‘plays’ may be working, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

In January, the Great Lakes Human Capital Network talked to some of the leaders writing the playbook for the brain drain turnaround.  In an hour-long conversation, Hilary Doe (President & Chief Growth Officer, Michigan Institute for Growth & Opportunity ), Brendon Cull (President & CEO, Cincinnati Regional Chamber), and Philip Powell (Executive Director, Indiana Business Research Center at IU), shared some of the top strategic plays employers and educators in the Great Lakes must run in 2026 to win the battle for top talent.

Play #1: The "Ambition-First" Pitch

The Insight: Leading with "low cost of living" can signal "low opportunity." Hilary Doe noted something she has learned from talking to over 20,000 Michiganders and young professionals in her time as Chief Growth Officer. "Affordability is the cherry on top, not the sundae."

The Failure: Selling the Midwest as "safe and cheap" rather than "fast and ambitious." For many in Gen Z, they’ve mentally given up on the idea of buying a house. Top talent wants to live somewhere they can build a fulfilling career and have a robust social life.

The Execution:

• For Employers: Re-script your recruiters. You must sell career velocity (faster promotion tracks) and impact (building the future). As Powell noted, showcasing ‘Innovation Districts’ or local investment and growth can make a difference for young people who seek opportunity. Affordability is just the closer.

• For Universities: Refresh your alumni panels. Bring back the young alumni who are crushing it professionally in the region. Show students that staying here is an accelerant, not a compromise.

  
  

Play #2: The "Experiential Interview"

The Insight: Hilary Doe shared one of the session's most interesting stats: When Michigan piloted "field trips" to physically immerse young talent in cities like Detroit, 90% of participants said they would happily take a job there.

The Failure: Conference room interviews that strip away the region's competitive advantage and interviews that bring a candidate into town without time to even go to the nearest coffee shop.

The Execution:

• For Employers: The 50% Rule. If you fly a finalist in for an interview, 50% of the itinerary should be outside the office. Design an "Experience Day" that showcases the parks, breweries, and "third places." Host a welcome reception at a new local restaurant, or close the visit with a sporting event. Don't make an offer until they've envisioned their life here. As Brendon Cull shared, regional chambers of commerce are built for this – they oftentimes have the resources, infrastructure, and funding to support this type of city ‘immersion.’

• For Universities: Burst the Bubble. Don't just host employers on campus. Organize "City Treks" where you bus students to the innovation districts and company HQs. Especially for those schools that sit in ‘college towns’ outside of urban areas, if students don't physically leave campus until graduation day, there’s no difference to them between moving to New York or Cleveland. 

  
  

Play #3: Employer / University Integration

The Insight: Companies manage their product supply chains with rigor but treat talent pipelines like a vending machine. Powell warned: "Treating it like a transaction leaves profit on the table."

The Failure: Career Fairs (Transactional) vs. Co-Ops and curriculum co-design (Relational).

The Execution:

• For Employers: Kill the booth. Move to Curriculum Co-Design. If you aren't embedding real-world projects into the classroom, or investing in a Co-Op type partnership (like University of Cincinnati’s) you don't have a pipeline; you’re just another table. Many top national employers have moved away from traditional career fairs to sponsoring immersion experiences, in-classroom projects, year-round on-campus events, and building co-op programs that have started getting their name in students’ ears in the fall of Freshman year, not Senior Year.

• For Universities: Fix the User Interface." You must create a "Single Point of Entry" for employers. Don't make your top employers call the Dean, the Career Center, and the Foundation separately. Create a concierge service for corporate partners – helping them immediately identify the immersive ways they can get involved on campus.

  
  

Play #4: "Peer-to-Peer" Activation

The Insight: When trying to bring talent back (Boomerangs), we instinctively market to the ideas of ‘settling down’ or ‘being close to family.’ Brendon Cull corrected this: "Mom and dad are not going to help here... The friends have the influence."

The Failure: "Come Home" campaigns that appeal to nostalgia rather than social relevance. Cities rely on the idea that young professionals will eventually come home to be closer to their parents or families, without making the investment in making the city feel like the place they want to build their family and continue a successful career and social life.

The Execution:

• For Employers: Launch an Alumni Referral Bonus. Incentivize your current employees to recruit their former college classmates. Peer pressure converts faster than parental pressure. Consider sponsoring events targeted toward boomerangs at high-yield times of year (i.e., December) when young professionals who moved to the coast five years ago are coming back for the holidays.

• For Universities: Cluster-Based Alumni Networks. Stop organizing alumni events by "Class Year." Organize them by City + Industry (e.g., "Wolverines in Tech: Detroit Chapter"). Create the professional peer network that naturally pulls them back to the hub. Help ease the transition ‘back home’ by providing a network of alumni who can automatically create a professional and social community.

  
  

Ready to implement the playbook?

The data is clear: The talent is here. The will is here. We just need to run the right plays. If you want to learn more about ways you can implement these plays and start turning around brain drain in your backyard, reach out to hello@greatlakeshumancapital.com.