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Calculated Risk shares great data and graphic regarding the correlation between unemployment and education. No surprises here. Go get a college degree.

Personalismo is a concept that doesn’t have a direct English translation but basically means building trust or credibilty through relationships. Read more about how understanding personalism can help employers (supervisors) establish a better relationship with their Hispanic interns (and the Hispanic workforce) from my guest blog at Intern Matters (via Internships.com).

Enjoy!

When you get a moment, go over and check out my latest guest blog over at GURConnect – “Establishing Hispanic Affinity Groups.” It discusses some things employers should consider when thinking about estblishing a Hispanic employment group within the company. A big component in targeting and retaining the Hispanic workforce.  Enjoy!

Not sure how I missed this great article in Diverse Issues in Higher Education from a couple weeks ago regarding the diversity of faculty in Science, Technology, and Engineering, and Math (STEM). The article focuses on the results a MIT self-study showing that while one quarter of MIT’s 2013 class represents students from underrepresented minority backgrounds, less than four percent of faculty represent U.S.-born minorities. Certainly, MIT might not be the only university that lacks diversity in its faculty minority representation, but the school does receive more attention given its innovative and progressive reputation.

The small numbers of minority students and faculty in STEM careers is a national problem. According to IEEE – over 78% of workers in STEM fields are white males.

 A 2005 study also that women faculty in the top 50 research universities are underrepresented at all ranks, especially as full professors. The study also revealed that underrepresented minority women are almost non-existent in science and engineering departments at research universities. There are obviously many challenges facing women and minority students AND faculty in the science and engineering fields.

What this article demonstrates is that higher education has yet to make addressing this issue a priority. It will take a long-term commitment to reverse this on-going trend. It requires that a college’s institutional culture reflect its values by identifying and addressing potential barriers facing minorities and women in STEM fields.

Today seemed to bring a lot of news regarding the under-representation of minorities in a lot of environments. This article on CUNY regarding how its students mirror the multihued demographics of the city’s 8.3 million population -yet two-thirds of its faculty is white. AmericanLawyer.com reports that 2009 was not a good year for minorities in large law firms – the industry is actually becoming LESS diverse – along with architectural firms. However, George Washington University can boast that it employs 2 percent more minority faculty members than the national average. Really, when 2% more minority faculty is seen as a good thing – there’s definitely more work needing to be done. Read

If you have chance, please take a moment to read my latest blog post over at the InternMatters blog: Hispanic Interns: We Are Family. Enjoy!

There’s really no way to improve upon this latest post on the ERE Blog regarding the recruitment and retention of Hispanics in the Federal workforce. John Bersentes and Mark Havard have done an excellent job in presenting the issues, the trends, and the potential opportunities in this area. John and I had emailed a few times months ago while he was in the middle of researching this article. I provided my own insights but it’s obvious that he spoke to many more people during his research process.  The following passage was most consequential for me: Read more…

The U.S. workforce is facing a skills shortage that is a threat to the long-term health of our economy. Organizations are experiencing recruitment challenges with its traditional sources of labor. As I’ve noted consistently on this blog, efforts are being made to recruit more Hispanics into the workforce, but with limited success. In the short term, some organizations and industry are filling the skills gap using workers from low wage economies. To meet the challenge of the skills gap the recruitment of Hispanics is no longer simply a nice thing to do; it has become a necessity.

While recruitment remains important, there is a knowledge gap in translating qualifications into employment, and employment into retention. This has been described by the ‘leaky pipeline’ concept. Attraction by itself is not the key to increasing Hispanics in the workforce. Recruitment must be followed by induction of the new employee in order to improve retention levels. Job satisfaction as a result of opportunities and promotion is more likely to retain Hispanic professionals.

The “glass ceiling”, the situation where women and minorities can see, but not reach higher level positions and are prevented from progressing in their careers, still exists in many occupations and industries. As I’ve noted on this blog, there are very few Hispanic chairpersons, CEOs, or COOs in the United States. This ongoing fact is important because it raises the debate about the advancement in the subject of inclusivity, assessing the real barriers faced by Hispanic professionals today and discussing means of redressing the balance to improve inclusivity in organizations. Expanding inclusivity, which includes attracting and retaining more Hispanic professionals in all industry sectors, needs to be a key priority for organizations, particularly those in participating in a global economy.

A skilled Hispanic workforce is emerging. While it is clear that more still needs to be done to fully develop a professional Hispanic workforce, it is clear that there could be many more Hispanics if organizations adopted better recruitment and retention policies now.

My job search as a graduating college student was a guidebook on how not to find the right career. Although I did have two job offers upon graduation, the one I accepted was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Looking back now, I realize that one of the many challenges I faced was my “non-traditional” background as a student. Unlike many of my peers in college, I was much older (27 when I graduated), had several years of work experience, and already had management experience in my young career. Rather than using previous experiences and background to my advantage, I tried going the “traditional” route of finding a job. Although my skills were appreciated, once in the organization, I was adrift in a corporate management program with little motivation or direction. It was a disaster. Today, non-traditional is a term that still describes Hispanic college students. While non-traditional students differ in many respects, one area of significant difference is the job choices they make.   Read more…

With the selection of Hilda Solis at the Department of Labor and Ken Salazar at the Department of Interior, Hispanics comprise 13% of President Obama’s cabinet. While these selections represent progress at the highest levels of the Federal government, you might be surprised to learn that Hispanics represent only 7.9% of the federal workforce as compared to 13.2% of the civilian workforce. The gap between the Hispanic representation in the federal sector and Hispanics in the general workforce has widened. In fact, the gap has almost doubled in the last ten years (3% in 1988 and 5.3% in 2008). This problem is exacerbated by the high separation rate of Hispanics—which negates much or all of the gains made in their recruitment.

To address this issue, the Second Annual Federal Hispanic Career Advancement Summit will be held on September 17 in Arlington, Virginia. The summit will offer workshops ranging from effective communication skills to strategies for building coalitions. On top of providing information to enhance the advancement of the talent needed to meet the challenges of the new millennium, the summit also provides an opportunity to network and develop professional relationships.