Unfortunately, I’m not one of the predicted 1,500 attendees at the 2010 National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Conference in Orlando, Florida the next few days. While disappointed, I’m excited to follow the tweets that will coming out of the conference via a number of attendees.
I also encourage you to follow three NACE staff members that will be tweeting about the annual 3 day event:@NACEJenRutt, @NACEKim, and @NACEMimi.
Similar to the tweets coming out of the Hispanic PR and Social Media Conference, I’ll be posting my perspectives by summarizing trends, issues, and other news coming out of the online discussion. Given the wide variety of trends and challenges facing students, career centers, and employers – it should be an interesting and insightful conference.
For those of you there – enjoy a cool drink for me by the pool. Thanks in advance for all your upcoming tweets from the conference!
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, most organizations and employers are now aware about the benefits of using online strategies to build awareness amongst college students. No where is this more notable than in targeting Hispanic college students. A new study shared by eMarketer shows that close to 40 million Hispanics will be online by the year 2014 – that translates into approximately 70% of Hispanics. According to the report:
The majority of online Hispanics are native born and speak English proficiently, but they still take notice when marketers’ Spanish-language efforts are lacking. Additionally, data shows that the Hispanic market is more receptive to online advertising than non-Hispanics.
Taken together with other reports that show Hispanics making significant increases using social media and mobile internet usage means employers should be making online strategies a big part of their college recruiting strategies.
Intern Bridge shares a great post regarding employer engagement on campus penned by Sara Gonzalez at Amway. For employers looking for a starting point or ‘blueprint’ of either starting or revamping their college recruiting efforts – here’s a great place to start. As I shared via the post’s comments section, I think the atmosphere on college campuses has certainly changed. College recruits need to be seen more as consumers not only looking for the right opportunity – but the right fit. While career fairs serve a purpose, they’re only part of a larger college recruitment strategy which allows an organization to be actively engaged with a campus. Yet, many organizations are still using traditional recruiting approaches to reach a new generation of students. Students are also much savvier, multicultural, and engaged given the rise of technology. Unlike the days when I was looking for my “first job,” It’s easy to spot an organization that is “not walking the talk” from what they say on campus and what they do within their industry using social media, Google, and networking resources. This is what today’s college student is following as a strategy to find the right employer – so it indeed takes more than attending a college career fair.
No question that the workforce today is becoming more diverse. However, it’s still striking how many organizations have yet to look beyond the traditional “one size fits all” recruiting model – this is particularly true in college recruiting. I’ve written many times about the need for companies to develop a customization model for their college recruiting strategies. Besides my own viewpoints, reports from organizations and authors have supported the need for organizations to match their recruiting strategies (and employee needs) with the diversity of the workforce. For example, this Emerging Workforce Study by Spherion includes an excellent overview of why employers should customize their recruiting efforts given the diversity of workforce. While many organizations employ this approach for senior level searches, such a strategy can be operationalized into a process that can be applied to all recruiting processes, including college recruiting. A customized college recruiting approach could be a key component in attracting and retaining a more diverse workforce.
Welcome to part one of the HTM Podcast series, “HSI Career Centers: Learning from the Best.” This series will take an in-depth look at what career centers at Hispanic Serving Institutions are doing to provide career guidance and support for Hispanic college students. Part one of the series features the Career Center at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), one of the largest 4 year HSIs in the United States. UTEP’s Career Center is doing some inventive things to meet the needs of students and employers including an innovative Student Peer Program. I’m joined by Betsy Castro-Duarte, a career center professional with over 13 years of experience working with Hispanic college students and 17 years of experience in higher education. Enjoy!
I’d like to share some thoughts on how strategies utilized in Hispanic marketing and PR can be applied to attracting the Hispanic workforce. The book I mention, Workforce of One: Revolutionizing Talent Management Through Customization, can be found here via Amazon. Enjoy!
It’s always great to see a 2-minute video that can summarize why employers need to pay attention to the Hispanic workforce. This video and the featured bilingual job fair is courtesy of AL DIA - a Hispanic news and media company based in Philly. Enjoy!
A college education is important. Traditionally, it’s been the most important factor in creating a path toward a successful career. This prevailing sentiment fittingly suggests that a college degree drives career opportunities: in a nutshell, to obtain better job choices, get a college degree. This thinking has always been reinforced by statistics showing that college graduates consistently earn higher wages and are more successful in their careers than those without a college degree. Given this sound logic, more people are attending college and earning their degrees. Ironically because of this trend, a better educated population coupled with an increasingly globalized economy has made the talent market more competitive. A college degree has become more like career requisite than a career advantage. Given the complex and changing economic environment, today’s college graduate must posses a new premium that goes beyond a college degree. This is why securing an internship, possibly two, during a student’s college years is now so critical to long-term career opportunities.
Students receive advice from career counselors, instructors, peers, and career websites about the many advantages of obtaining an internship: the opportunity to apply classroom knowledge in a “real world” setting; the opportunity to develop professional relationships and contacts prior to graduation; the opportunity build additional knowledge that enhances classroom understanding; and the opportunity to become acquainted with organizational structures and cultures. These are all very important motivations to seek out professional experience prior to graduation; however, there are other reasons I’ve alluded to above. Read more…
A more diverse population means organizations must re-examine their diversity strategies, especially if they’re interested in reaching the Hispanic workforce. Trends in recruiting demonstrate that organizations are changing their approach to attracting and retaining employees based on the needs of a more diverse multi-cultural workforce. And while many organizations are looking ahead changing toward multi-cultural recruiting approaches, many are still engrained in traditional strategies to attract top Hispanic talent. How can forward looking companies be ready to take advantage of the new Hispanic workforce? Here are three broad strategies organizations can use to get started:
1) Is Your Organization Ready to be Culturally Intelligent?
How is your organization perceived by potential Hispanic employees? What is the perception of your organization, for example, at colleges and universities? Gauging and understanding perception vs. reality is an important first step in attracting top entry-level Hispanic graduates. Once you’ve identified potential gaps, get organization executives to step up and get on board to drive the need for change in your recruitment approach. Be ready to articulate the business case for a multi-cultural recruiting strategy.
2) Are You Structurally Ready?
Be ready what you wish for…. and be ready for success. Once you’ve secured support from your organization, are your recruitment and retention programs ready to manage the influx of professional Hispanic employees? Review your current employee programs to assure they’re culturally responsive and are developed with a more diverse employee-base in mind. If you have an established college recruitment program, is it aligned with your commitment to increasing your Hispanic recruitment efforts? Are you partnering with Hispanic oriented colleges, organizations, and other associations?
3) Are You Thinking Inclusivity?
Once you get this new multi-cultural approach rolling, also build an organizational culture that appreciates inclusiveness based on ethnicity, culture, age, and other factors. Be aware that employees (new and long-standing) are constantly monitoring and evaluating the organization/employee relationship to assure there’s a mutual fit. From a Hispanic perspective, this means leveraging community relationships for recruitment purposes and providing professional developmental opportunities.
I get emails from students now and then asking for advice on different things so today I’d like to offer them some proactive advice – time to start planning for Fall internships. If you’ve not applied or found a Summer internship by now, chances are good you’ll need to start planning for the next slew of opportunities in the Fall. A number of organizations such as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and many others are taking applications now planning for the Fall session or quarter. Now is the time to be proactively looking for that internship opportunity – what are you waiting for – go get one!
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, most organizations and employers are now aware about the benefits of using online strategies to build awareness amongst college students. No where is this more notable than in targeting Hispanic college students. A 
Intern Bridge shares a great post 
Welcome to part one of the HTM Podcast series, “HSI Career Centers: Learning from the Best.” This series will take an in-depth look at what career centers at
