I often write about why organizations and employers need to understand and recognize the importance of the Hispanic workforce. And while direct recruitment is important, so are the other efforts that organizations can undertake to demonstrate that they have a sincere interest in developing and supporting this group. Hence, always nice to see when organizations actually ”get it.” The University of St. Louis, for example, is establishing a new research initiative to examine issues facing the region’s growing Latino population. Rather than competing, colleges and universities in the region are collaborating, sharing, and building discussions to help support and understand the growing Hispanic population. In addition, my favorite airline, Southwest Airlines, is teaming up with HACU to award Hispanic students (and immediate family) to travel to/from a college or university.  The tickets will be awarded to undergraduate and graduate Hispanic students with socio-economic needs who journey away from home to pursue higher education. Effort. Commitment. Support. These organizations “get it.”

PODER360 shares a great article on the efforts of HACR and their advocacy for increasing the number of Hispanics in CEO positions.  According to the article:

As of 2006, some 22 Hispanics held positions as CEO, chair or president at Fortune 1000 companies. This was up from 16 in 2003, according to the Hispanic Association for Corporate Responsibility (HACR).

AOL News had a great article today on the strength of diversity, and how it has, is, and will reshape the American landscape from many perspectives including the workforce. From racial composition, multi-cultural backgrounds, immigration, and the suburbs, diversity is touching almost every aspect of our society. Money line from the article:

Large American companies are also increasingly led by people with roots in foreign countries, including 14 of the CEOs of the 2007 Fortune 100. Even corporate America — once the almost-exclusive reserve of native-born Anglo-Saxons — will become as post-ethnic as the larger society.

While I think there’s definitely much more work to be done in this regard, the article gives organizations and employers a good idea of what’s coming down the road in the not too distant future.

Just wanted to share a couple of guest posts via  the Intern Matters blog (Internships.com): “Internships: Not Just for Summer Anymore” & “Successful Multi-Cultural Management.”  Please visit and enjoy. Thanks! ; )

Good article in the WSJ discussing that engineers are the highest college graduate money makers with petroleum and computer science majors making up the top two fields. A great opportunity for Hispanic college students; however; while Hispanics are entering the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields in greater numbers, according to the NCES, they still lag in completion rates. White students had a higher STEM bachelor’s degree completion rate than did Hispanic or Black students. According to the NSES, less than 6% of engineering graduates are represented by Hispanics.  No question that increasing the number of engineering grads is imperative to the economic sustainability of the United States. Yet, engineering educational institutions as well as employers have not been effectively developing or tapping the skills and talents of Hispanics – a still missed opportunity.

DiversityInc just shared their Top 50 Companies List for Diversity hiring. Below are the top ten. 

1: Sodexo
2: Johnson & Johnson
3: AT&T
4: Kaiser Permanente
5: Ernst & Young
6: PricewaterhouseCoopers
7: Marriott International
8: IBM Corp.
9: Bank of America
10: Abbott

I got a chuckle from this article regarding how the Office of Personnel Management is aiming to cut recruiting time (interview to hire) for federal jobs in half. This means cutting a 5-month process to about 2 1/2 months. When I worked at the University of Texas at El Paso, I helped many students find federal jobs and the process back then took about 9-12 months (depending on the agency). I just don’t see how anyone, especially today, will or be open to waiting even 2 months to just start a job.

I was just reviewing my blog’s “numbers” over the last 9-months using Google Analytics. Last month I had the largest number of visitors to Hispanic Talent Memo since I started blogging in July, 2009. And while my numbers don’t obviously compare to many other “high traffic” sites, the trend lines show that more and more of you are visiting. I’m incredibly humbled by the thought that many of you visit this blog on a consistent basis to read my thoughts on the Hispanic workforce.

I do appreciate your willingness to spend some time here - I realize the internet and blogosphere are filled with so many choices so it means that much more knowing you stop by now and then. After each visit, I hope you walk away with a better understanding of how organizations can tap into this emerging and very talented group of future employees.

So thank you for visiting, and please keep coming back!

Gracias and saludos, Miguel.

I came across this blog post via Seth Godin’s blog – interestingly it’s a re-post of his from eight years ago but much of it still holds true today. Part of the post discusses a visit he made to Harvard to talk to students about getting a job in marketing.  Seth encouraged students back then to get a job with a small business in order to get some real experience –  get their hands dirty – an opportunity not easily provided to students in most large organizations. One student’s response was remarkable:

…one woman professed to agree with me, but then explained, “But those companies don’t interview on campus.” Those companies don’t interview on campus. Hmmm. ……She has just spent $100,000 in cash and another $150,000 in opportunity cost to get an MBA, but…

Aside from the student’s incredible response, the thought that popped into my head is  – well, why weren’t small businesses there? College students can obviously learn from this story – but so can small businesses that aren’t showing up to campus. If you’re a small business, it doesn’t take that much work to develop a highly effective college recruitment program. It takes planning, commitment, and consistency. Given that many college graduates today want to get their hands dirty, want to work with the CEO, and want to make a contribution, small businesses provide an excellent opportunity for college grads to do just that. So make an effort to get on campus and get it in the game.

The results of a recent study by Encuesta Inc. show that Hispanics feel corporations are less engaged and involved in the Hispanic community than a few years ago. According to the results (via Hispanic PR Blog):

The findings show that Hispanics have lost confidence in major corporations’ role in their community. Even though Hispanics find it increasingly more important that major corporations be “good” corporate citizens in their community in 2009 compared to 2005 (86% in 2009 vs. 81% in 2005, on a top two box basis), they believe that the major corporations are doing remarkably less than they were five years ago (36% in 2009 vs. 12% in 2005).

The purchasing power of the Hispanic market is apparent, and results like these might have some impact on how organizations market to Hispanics; however, another question is this: how do results like this impact the recruitment of Hispanic workforce into your organization?

As some employers struggle to increase representation of the Hispanic workforce and other minorities into their organizations, potential employees of color will certainly research how organizations are giving back to their respective communities. And while corporate social responsibility reports might tout their successes, study’s like these indicate there is a definite perceptual gap between an organization’s efforts and the perceptions of a minority group.

It’s important for employers to pay attention to these results (and others like this) because it continues to confirm the perception that organizations are more interested in selling their products to a minority community than attracting them into their businesses.