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Employers Go All-Out For Minority Undergrads
1 November 2007
By Pepi Sappal
Twenty-one-year-old Madeline Sola hasn’t graduated from college yet. But the mechanical-engineering major already has her first employer lined up.
If she wants it, Sola has a job waiting for her at Pratt & Whitney, an aircraft-engine, space-propulsion-system and gas-turbine maker in East Hartford, Conn., when she graduates from Massachusetts’s Worcester Polytechnic Institute next year. Not a bad position to be in, given the job market for new grads.
Many undergraduates have had a particularly hard time landing jobs lately because of competition from experienced candidates, says Bill Krutzen, director of operations at HireDiversity.com, an Internet job board. “What makes matters worse is that the experienced jobless are prepared to take a newly graduated person’s salary as they are so desperate for work,” he says.
But information-technology and engineering graduates of color have an easier time in the job market “because there’s so few of them,” says Stephanie Blaisdell, director of diversity and women’s programs at Worcester Polytechnic, an engineering university. “Nationally, only 6.6% of African-Americans and 7% of Hispanics pursue engineering,” she says. “And less than 1% [of engineers] are Native American.”
Employers’ interest in diversity hiring helped all of WPI’s minority 2003 graduates secure jobs quickly. Even during the downturn, recruiting minority students remained a priority for many companies, says Sharon Lutz, director of the Ford Careers Center at the University of Texas in Austin. She adds that many employers are “extremely aggressive” about hiring them.
Degrees Can Dictate Demand
Demand for minority students varies by discipline but is particularly strong for those in engineering and technological fields, says John Miller, president and publisher of Equal Opportunity Publications Inc., which publishes Hispanic Engineer, Woman Engineer and other magazines. Recruitment ads in the company’s minority engineering titles were up 25% in 2003 from fall 2002, he notes. The job market for minority graduates should improve further by spring 2004, raising the company’s ad revenue another 5% to 10%.
Lucrative government contracts have caused this latest recruiting surge for minority engineers. The government requires contractors to meet guidelines regarding minority employment. For defense contractors, $380 billion in business is at stake, and many companies need diversity to win a share, Miller says. That means “proving to government watchdogs that a good-faith effort is [being] made to recruit diversity,” he says.
Meanwhile, savvy global marketers, such as Xerox Corp. and Dell Inc., are hoping to hire more employees of color to address changing customer demographics. Consumers in the U.S. are becoming more diverse, and global markets are growing more important to overall revenues.
Companies Get Competitive
At Rutgers University in New Jersey, career-services director Richard White meets weekly with representatives of such companies as Johnson & Johnson, IBM Corp., Pfizer Inc. and Citigroup, which have diversity programs designed to entice the best students of color, he says. Hispanic, African-American and Native American students who have good academic records and relevant internship experience are especially prized recruits.
“Although we aren’t hiring as much as before [the recession], when we do, the emphasis is on quality, high-performing students,” says Joe Hammill, Xerox’s manager of talent acquisition. Xerox starts forging relationships with minority undergraduates when they start their degree programs, he says. “To get the highfliers early, we have to win over the best candidates well before they graduate, because the competition, particularly for talented technical undergraduates, is extremely intense,” he says.
Xerox taps into the pool of talented minority students by maintaining relationships with historically black colleges and universities with significant Hispanic-student populations. The company also recruits through its black and Hispanic college liaison programs and chapters of professional organizations such as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, says Hammill.
The Role of Liaison Officers
Liaison officers are Xerox employees and alumni of the particular universities. They visit campuses to meet with faculty and students to discuss potential careers opportunities at Xerox and to assist students with developmental needs. “We also help out with resumes, access to mentors and possible internships,” says Xerox employee and liaison officer Kelia Peña, 31. The program gives Xerox an advantage “because it provides us with links and access to the best students of color,” she says.
Peña joined Xerox five years ago after completing undergraduate and graduate degrees in industrial engineering at the University of Buffalo. She was inundated with job offers from various employers, but Xerox’s liaison program won her over, and she became part of the company’s asset-management diversity program for African-Americans and Hispanics. She has held positions in project management, manufacturing engineering, supply-chain management and human resources. Her next role is project manager of service development for Xerox global services.
Prospects for Nontechnical Grads
In fields less technical than engineering, some students of color have it just as tough or tougher in the job market than nonminority graduates. Aquyla Walker, a 22-year-old African-American, has been job hunting with little success since graduating in May from Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., with a dual degree in English and world literature and fiction writing.
“I began my search initially for a career in public relations, and then extended it to a diversity-related role, preferably at an academic organization, but despite an intensive job search, I have not had much luck in either,” says Walker. “Nor have fellow students who pursued business degrees.”
Employers say they want diversity, but Walker challenges these claims. “Students like myself believe that firms are doing little more than paying lip-service to diversity,” she says.
How to Boost Your Odds
Still, students of color can improve their odds of getting professional jobs by graduation, especially if they start their searches early, says Chuck Knippen, campus-diversity-programs manager at Monster Worldwide Inc., an Internet job-posting firm based in New York City.
Large companies are making an effort to demonstrate that their environments are conducive for minority hires and that there’s potential for advancement, says Knippen. Minority students can improve their prospects of joining such companies by seeking them out, he says.
“Attend career fairs and build a relationship with the companies you want to work for,” he advises. “Do some research to find out exactly what the recruiting standards are and what type of attributes they’re looking for and work towards that. If you do it early, even in the second or third year of [college], you won’t have to put so much pressure on yourself in the senior year.”
Many employers also are looking for relevant experience on resumes. Internships are highly recommended, because they make students more marketable, says Peña, but some students can’t afford to participate in them because they’re unpaid.
A Student Does It All
Sola sought every advantage she could. She worked with Inroads Inc., a national organization, based in St. Louis, Mo., that helps students of color find internships, particularly in science, engineering and business fields. “They hooked me up with Pratt & Whitney, and I interned for several semesters with them since high school,” she says. The internships, plus taking advantage of other diversity programs, helped her win the job offer, she says.
Students of color also can sidestep the competition by using diversity-oriented Internet job sites. “If you use a diversity or profession-specific board, you’ll not only be targeting jobs more carefully, but improving your odds of getting a job,” says Krutzen.
Even if employers are seeking graduates of color in your field, don’t become complacent, says Lutz. Whether or not demand is strong, minority students still must be competitive. Take advantage of campus career resources, prepare thoroughly for interviews and present a professional image, she advises. By doing so, you’ll have myriad opportunities open to you and be in the enviable position of choosing the career of your dreams.
About the Author
Ms. Sappal, the former editor of GlobalHR magazine, is a free-lance writer in London.
Source : College Journal
Keywords:Culture and Work diversity in the workplace Ethnicity and Work Workplace Diversity
Sphere It
November 1st, 2007 at 1:05 am
Students need to start preparing for going into the job market as soon as they leave high school. They must be able to represent experience, whether they’ve utilized their summers for internships or some other way that they’ve acquired management experience. They should also make a point of updating and polishing their resume annually in preparation for the impending job search.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:14 am
Students should look out for specialist fairs for ethnic minority students and graduates. Some organizations target specific career areas where there is a low representation of ethnic minority staff in that profession.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:18 am
In considering all of the factors that are important to employers as they recruit students in colleges and universities nationwide, college major, grade point average, and work-related experience usually rise to the top of the list. The importance of these three factors should not be underestimated and are critically important in the selection of candidates for interviews.