King yeah pretty sure it's but awesome
great thanks for coming today um so this
is gonna jump right into it we're gonna
stare at this image for about five more
seconds and then I'm stay at this those
are some ones are pretty and look at
this right Wow
all those things have in common is like
wow they're the one thing standing in
the way of diversity intact pipes who
would have thunk it so welcome to
diversity pipelines college alumni and
you wow I'm glad I have that right now
because I wouldn't I remember that time
when that made it up so here's the
things I hope you walk away with one
kind of a new perspective into
recruiting new grads of entry-level
positions at your organization slash
company of in to resources and
organizations that will help you connect
with underrepresented students I do not
want this to be a kind of a lecture
because I am NOT a lecturer I want this
to be very conversational and I want you
to be able to walk away with actual
tangible things of like oh I can't
actually like do that after I leave I
think a lot of times we get stuck in the
mud when we talk about the dreaded D
word diversity and that usually ends up
to be a lot of talking but not a lot of
doing call to actions walk aways so me
as my name is Stephen Hart I am a user
experience designer at the University of
Michigan and I'm also a graduating
master's student graduating in this
April I am also I also worked for years
for this little startup which is now
failed I think it's fair to say called
block that is it was a perfect it was a
professional networking organization
that aimed at connecting black college
students to professional networking
opportunities basically the mission was
to reduce the
the unemployment rate for black college
grads so somewhat of I've been in this
space for at least professionally for
for a couple years now uh cool right the
bane of our back to this thing the bane
of our existence pipes so pipe so we're
talking so you hear when we hear this
we're a lot being in the tech space with
this this mythical pipeline of being the
really can we really blame pipe the
pipelines for this reason on why we
can't and what there isn't diversity and
tech raizou the idea is that there are
no there aren't enough qualified air
quotes there aren't enough qualified of
you know black Latino Hispanic and
Native students or an women and/or women
coming through the pipeline in order for
organizations to hire but really are
they really to blame yes it no yes yes
and no I'd be telling you a both face
slide if I told you that there isn't a
significant under-representation of
women and uh and minority minorities
groups at involved in like tech and stem
programs at the K through 12 level and
at the the undergraduate level I'd be
lying if I didn't say that however right
the way the pipeline rhetoric is kind of
views is it's really kind of like a bait
and switch right so like when Charlie
Brown tries to get the ball and and and
always has the football it just it's
just taken from under him they accept
it's really kind of like this where he's
perpetually stuck in the state of trying
to kick the ball and missing to the
point where there's no it doesn't it
doesn't ever really seem like there's a
a position or a move for the to the for
the pipeline to actually be fixed so
essentially what I mean by that is that
companies will keep saying that pipeline
is an issue but they won't do anything
about it and if they won't do anything
about it and then they can keep
reporting that two initial pointing that
to be the issue so what is the truth
right what is really going on here
so here's what we know right
underrepresented minorities and by that
I mean so black Latino Hispanic and
Native American communities are
disproportionately unemployed and
underemployed and by underemployed I
mean that people that that for example a
black person with similar qualifications
and capability as a white counterpart is
more than likely not in a lower skilled
position it isn't more likely than not
in a lower skilled position and compared
to their white counterpart so they have
the skills but for whatever reason
instead of being the junior software
developer their tech support right have
the same degrees learn the same thing
but at different positions
these are the owners okay so these are
only number I did not want to load this
that's another issue with diversity
presentations as people start throwing
numbers at you and people really don't
care about numbers so these are the only
numbers that you could see anyways eight
point six percent black right so that's
the representation apply these are these
numbers from 2015 he's from the Bureau
of Labor Statistics in the computer and
math work for is it's eight percent
right and just as another preface you
add flat or these numbers for black and
Hispanic but if you add ribbon on to it
to basically cut those numbers in half
if not more right so it gets really
worse once we start crossing those in uh
intersecting those identities it's a
twenty eight percent for presenting for
Hispanic so very similar when we get to
computer science and engineering grads
you know a person Hispanic six percent
flat again once you
you start intersecting with women even
worse but for whatever reason right here
is the a list of the 25 most wanted new
grad alumni in 2017 so basically for new
grad hires these are the list of the 25
schools that sent the most rats to
Silicon Valley that may or may not have
relevant relevance to us here in the
Midwest in Chicago but just let's take a
look at this right so we have some very
clear obvious you know links right so a
bunch of a bunch of a bunch of
California schools so Berkeley Stanford
yeah
USC San Jose State San Diego right so
it's varied so a lot of these are you
know especially ones near the top a lot
of them have that proximity the others
just happened to be top and again air
quotes in the top top programs top CS
and engineering programs right so
there's a really strong correlation with
one of those schools Hey look even my
school is up there number 17 University
of Michigan I can tell you for a fact
that I could probably in my cohort and
my master's record which is about
somewhere between I think 300 and 350
people and this is just master students
I am one of probably less than I could
probably count all of the black people
men and men and women on one on both of
my hands
probably one hand right so the idea is
here like
obviously when we're looking at these
two numbers right here right these
numbers aren't completely coming from
just these schools however these schools
also aren't serving the majority of
underrepresented and minority CS and
engineering grabs and I know that
there's that's not the surefire way and
to getting into the tech industry or a
software development role however that's
kind of just the most atypical right or
the most difficult one so let's put it
all together
right and we were going to get reached a
point here where we kind of stop and
have a conversation because like I said
I wanted to be very conversational let's
assume that we're going to the store
right to hire some grads because we need
a job filled right so we're going to
Kroger you don't like Kroger too bad so
we're going to Kroger and we go to the
candy aisle because this is where the
the job hires are right server we're
trying to find a talent pool of
potential candidates for these but you
know for one or more positions and this
is kind of what we think we're all going
to end up with right that should look
like this right these is what our
potential pool of candidates should look
like we have the original you have a
tropical yep
salary have the sweet and sour I didn't
know they had the sweet and sour they
and the wild berry right very good
collection and assortment of diverse
talent pool right but instead in reality
it typically ends up looking like this
right so these are like are these and
these are likely they came up with some
spicy ones it's weird I was googling I
think they have spicy skittles anyways
is allegories all an allegory right so
these are these typically what the you
know the talent pool usually ends up
look like these are the applications
that end up getting put
to the into the pool and that you know
it's not it's not your fault you know
this is I really don't want this to come
off as any sort of confrontational or
accusatory but you know there there are
reasons why and in reality we typically
go through when recruiters go through
standardized are go through a normal or
typical recruiting process that their
talent pool usually ends up looking like
red orange and yellow skittles rather
now again pitchers may be deceiving so
at the bottom of this stack might be a
blue skittle who knows right because
they might actually by the time they get
to that blue schedule they've probably
got three other people at different
stages of the interview process so you
know the the idea here is to to get to
this and let me not and let me not mince
words or sell dreams right we're not
going to get like a an equal
representation where we have you know as
in a pool of a hundred candidates who
are going to get ten blue skittles and
ten green skittles intently you know
where it's all equitable right but
surely we can short try to work towards
something that doesn't look like this
and so kind of bringing it back all
together how this is maybe this ends up
having to do something with the story
that we're going to write typically what
I found in my experience is that and we
kind of and we seed here right if people
keep going to UC Berkeley or Georgia
Tech or Stanford or Texas A&M or
University of Illinois they keep going
to the same Kroger where every time
their talent pool ends up looking like
this then that's how we get 1% like
employees 2 percent Hispanic employees
how we end up getting this this right
so anybody hiring managers or anybody
who's ever done any hiring in the room
and yes interviewing to us count okay
have you in the back I hate to put you
on spy since you said you're the only
hiring manager do you have any you have
any you know any thoughts that come to
mind as as you kind of said and listen
you feel free at any moment so it's not
like they posting somehow in the drug
world that we're actually looking for
people it would be like a de Stefano
store it's actually advertising
yeah yeah having some clue better
cooking food that doesn't bias us
towards towards white males are people
who have more you know chances to yeah
not even graduating the right thing and
go out and do tax like just a lot of
people injured so yeah I mean I know my
thoughts are like yeah tell me where
that
yeah go through a hiring process of
those many things also but yeah that's
unfortunate where I am
did anybody else have any
because hiring tends to favor people who
already have connections
inherently makes it less diverse because
people are usually
others who are already like them
mm-hmm yeah and some of those and and
one of those in groups turns up in being
people who also went to your alma mater
I know for a fact the University of
Michigan has like the largest alumni
base in the world
so like it is totally like one of those
things where it's it's understandable
because so much of it happens
unconsciously right because you're not
thinking you're not thinking oh I'm
about to go back to my college or this
program that that I graduated from and
you know I'm going to throw them a bone
right because I remember you know
everybody remembers what it was like
coming out of college and you know going
through the to do the job search process
you know perhaps for the first time ever
and realizing how difficult that was and
you know part of being part of a strong
alumni base or alumni network is
connecting with current students at your
at your alma mater alma mater mater
mater so we don't really think of you
don't really think of of like oh you
know when I send an email back to this
lits listserv of current and past
students or current students and alumni
it's like hey I work at this company
we're currently hiring please reach out
to me if you're interested we don't
think of like wow my program is only has
like you know 10 black people in it
right now I only have 20 Hispanic people
in it right now so you don't really
don't we really don't think of kind of
like the demographics of our of our
programs when we go back specifically to
recruit now I'm not I do not say that to
say don't ever go back to your alma
mater to read to to to recruit now
saying don't ever share those
opportunities with people within your
network but we're going to talk about
kind of the ways we can
with that right so how do we get the
rest of the school and the rest of the
skittles how do we get those blue
schedules right I love blue skills fun
fact I was actually going to do this I
that's going to do the skill analogy the
starburst however I do think people I
feel like people feel just a quite
attached strongly about their preferred
starburst or definite it might would
have played pit just a bit too close to
home because I am preferential to being
starburst but some people might have
felt weird about that what do you mean
okay how we get there
match it okay not really
first there is no way to do this without
being intentional there is a lot of you
know kind of conversation and discussion
around like oh well we're just not going
to give like we just can't give these
jobs to minorities or to women as kind
of like a handout like they can't be
like a friend action it can be quotas
right because then we're not getting the
best candidate there's no way to do this
one this has really nothing nothing of
this has to do with the actual
interviewing process burn more rather
the recruitment process is how you get
more people into the recruitment process
and there's no way to do this without
being intentional which means what that
means is and this is zero instead of one
because this is you have to kind of
understand this before we even get to
the other parts we have you have to seek
these out like you you have to set aside
time to go out and intentionally try to
access these resources and there's no
way you're going to do that without
being intentional it's just not going to
fall into your lap so the first one like
we already mentioned avoid your alma
mater try somewhere else like an HBCU
does anybody not know what HBCU is
wait are you guys lying to me it's okay
it's really okay if you're not from the
South you probably don't know what a
HBCU is okay so a HPC yeah so a HBCU
stands for this historically black
college or university so that when the
United States government says you need
girls can't come to our schools
well the Negroes made their own schools
and they hey there's a lot of them that
still exist and not only that HBCUs are
actually each they actually constitute a
lot of the professional type of
graduates so base a lot of stem schools
right so where to find them Wow I
haven't listed in bullet point for you
all right if you and if you need these
links after please reach please stop me
after I would be happy to email on these
resources to you Hispanic serving
institutions they know those existed
either did you
right there's actually one here it's uh
I think it's I think the University of
Chicago is a UIC yeah yeah University of
Illinois Chicago high school a
university yeah is a Hispanic serving
institution and then we have MS is or a
minority serving institutions so these
are schools that don't aren't
necessarily well they say so HBCUs and
Hispanic serving institutions are
federal designations that means these
were explicitly found at these schools
specifically founded with the purpose
and minority serving institutions our
our schools that have over a 50 percent
minority enrollment this is where the
University no this is Chicago State yeah
Chicago State is a minority serving
institution because it is very very very
diverse so boom next time you're
thinking wow we were in the Midwest for
in Chicago you know
and he's based in Chicago where is a job
fair we could go to maybe one of these
schools he can use this as a resource to
figure out where to go to
minority-serving professional
organizations so we're to find them what
kinds of National Society of black
engineers the National Society of blacks
in computing black dated processing
associates tech here which I should have
labeled that but that's for Latin tech
technical or Hispanics in tech or
Latinos in tech and then women and
technology so these are all professional
professional organizations serve to
continue to serve these specific groups
in the realm of tech space right so not
only do they have conferences but they
have it in they have a incredibly
diverse membership and role of
membership that is just waiting to be
tapped into 2.5 minority-serving
professional conferences so of course
obviously I think is that all of these
most more likely to not have conferences
if not annually you know periodically
maybe go there set up a booth become a
sponsor there's also some other general
like tech tech conferences here right so
there's black Tech Week that's based out
of Florida
there's Afro Tech in California there's
Latino Tech in California here in the
Midwest you had the Midwest women in
tech that they have that conversation in
Chicago and then the P BWC wishes
professional women's professional
business women conference I think I said
that right
I think I remembered that
but anyways the idea here is that there
are tons and tons of times like
literally you can just google women tech
conferences and you can probably find a
bunch by region a bunch by state where
they meeting when they're meeting and
maybe that's a way to kind of pitch to
somebody in HR is like hey maybe we
should sponsor and you should sponsor
this conference or maybe we should go to
recruit their three word-of-mouth is
your friend social media is - I can tell
you right now I probably have no less
than two slack channels for groupies -
Facebook groups and even a discord
channel or - that's centered around
young black professionals it basically
it's I think it's not something that I
on attack I mean I can only really speak
from the perspective of my black lived
experience but black people like we it's
writable black Millennials we network
like crazy like and we do the kind of
like we do informal networking like
crazy and when I tell you like we share
jobs and opportunities like it's
nobody's business
simply because we know how hard it is to
find these opportunities is actually
there's actually research on this as
well as blacks and Hispanics just we
don't fight like we're more likely to
find jobs and opportunities this way
because we're not connected to those
kind of resources - like like regular
job boards and things like that just
because
no way I told us about them you know so
much this disproportionally
first-generation college students are
minorities and nobody's there to tell
you how to navigate the system then you
know we have to figure to figure out a
way through our own ways there's kind of
a corollary to that too because there's
also back channels so like if your
company it's like you know Ashley a
little bawling people like through some
TV you know sexual harassment incidents
and they constantly get brushed over by
upper management there are people out
there that are sharing that information
with each other and you know that's
that's like kind of survival thing but
you'd be like aware that you know you
can't get away with it so those kind of
things without it like hurting your
reputation out there and maybe like you
have a pipeline issue but maybe you've
actually have a serious number
management issue you need to address
yeah so I think that's and of course I
was gonna leave you hanging right so
your professional your personal and
professional network this will be you
know sharing a job posting on Facebook
sharing job posting on LinkedIn listen
you can even reach out to like you know
if you do have you know somebody if you
do have a colleague right who's black or
Latino or Hispanic or native-american
right like reach out to them but do you
have any networks that serve you know
you know that serve people with your
identity and I'll be more than happy is
like please we're looking to get more
diverse candidates in the pipeline
please share this through your network
like I've gotten people like I remember
I got somebody a job I got I got
somebody a job at uber just through i
I've never I never met I've never met
the recruiter a day in my life I never
met the person who got it who got the
job day in my life I saw the job posting
on Twitter they said hey we're looking
for we're looking to increase early
we're looking to get this this job
posting in front of
spaces I was like got it I shared it and
one group me I said this is the person
that you email two weeks later the the
recruiter reaches I was like hey thanks
for referencing I remember saying
because I've never met the president day
of my life and he said thanks recruiting
or thanks for referencing them they're
just going through the interview process
right now three weeks later it's like
hey we made the hire thanks a lot
right it literally happens as simple as
that
like those loose connections even just
based on identity can be really strong
in so many cases if you're on Twitter
and again I really hate that something
so much this is this is senator black
focus so that is definitely my high bias
but on Twitter there is black creative
jobs and hashtag rainy day jobs both of
those are pretty popular hashtags in
which you can share job opportunities
that well at least you'll be able to
find black and afro-latino candidates
for those for those kind of jobs for
minority serving talent agencies this
was actually really hard the only one
that I that I was aware of before I
really did my research on this was job
well I've had job well reach out to me
um again basically all they do is they
just they just seek out diverse talent
for four companies and they specifically
serve black Latino and Native American
populations and so if you're looking at
you know kind of diversifying or
increasing that outreach for you know
your company's job posting job wall is
definitely one there's also diversity
comm I don't I haven't really I've never
engaged with diversity calm however high
from what I from a very cursory current
cursory yeah glance it also serves the
same purpose and do five not involved in
hiring advocate for these anyways try to
get involved in hiring right you know if
you're talking you know if your company
has an internship program happy campers
you know try to get on committee
advocate for it that way bring it up to
HR like I felt there's there's there's
so many even though you know we go back
to the original and how much this has to
be intentional it's not it's not
impossible to find I think it's really
important to kind of remind results of
that and that's it I told myself I was
gonna find a way to fit a shit-filled
justice and I did that's it how do you
feel I work with college-age students
all of those in technology and a big
barrier that I find our students face
alert but we started by an Amazon
citizen color is the creative piece so
you know we have a lot of students who
are at UIC or facing here in Chicago or
even at you go by which it was like
numbered less mostly crap I mean all
those tools were probably white
institutions which address but option
peddler students are working mother in
school so they may not have like a 3.5 a
great and so that is a hard stop if
you're not at the school and you don't
have the grades but they're not looking
at you know the other like that they are
holding two jobs
do you have any insight yes
so my my my response to that is it it
really goes into having and you know you
may not be positioning your and with
companies or to kind of have this
conversation but it really has goes to
asking ourselves 'king you know
internally what really does 33.0 mean
and can we tie those things to job
performance
are they indicative of quality hires is
there any other metric or indication by
which we can you know you see colleges
do this you know you see colleges do
this for their admissions looks like
like oh well you know you didn't have a
three point eight nine out of high
school however you know you were the
captain of the basketball team you were
the president of the Key Club I mean
like the day they add they add those
intangibles and those holistic metrics
kind of to involved in and their process
and you and and this is really something
it's not the fault of the companies
because that's really kind of indicative
of those specific institutions and the
resources they provide on
underrepresented
so it is a hard berry to get over
however it is stuff it's just it's a
conversation you have to have with
people making these hiring policies and
really what is a 3.0 you know I hope
that answers yeah and yeah and it's and
it's hard yeah and it's hard and it
looks like oh whoa because then it gets
to the point like oh now we're not
hiring we're lowering our standards
right we're lowering our standards but I
was like when's the last time you were
in college
thank three go really doesn't mean
anything right now I'm not saying you
hire people and you know you know you
hire people in academic probation but
you know surely surely we have some
listen middle ground to me here but yeah
I totally get it
so you know yes I work for in Chicago we
have
I think I'm Tyler
it's a pointy head of what IT department
everybody there's excellent buy things
like I think we're blessed there is it's
a rainbow it gets in there absalom
everybody I think
I want to speak to the intentional
aspects of things the university itself
has like you know they focus on civic
engagement
so it's an I part and woodlawn and so
they make sure that they impact
community high part from Woodlawn and
all the way down to South Shore and the
effect of it is like what you see when
it comes to go to the hospital it comes
to the actual apartment you see all
nations working together and it's
possible you know and I think for me if
that wasn't the case if I faced working
for an Oregon been today there wasn't
much diversity in Portland Oregon if I
worked at like a place that was not
diverse I wouldn't be out making a lot
of noise and maybe they'd fire me but I
think we have to there but that we have
to be intentional they has to be like a
model I've been tattooed with somewhere
it does have to be an intentional thing
because
there's so much talent out there that
people get discouraged whether their GPA
or whether they feel I hated my skin
tone is just entering me people get
discouraged that we've detected well and
I just want to applaud everyone this
talk about me the attentional about it
is I really identify with that and I'm
grateful for where I work is I can
relate to all sorts of people that if it
was a black all-black firm or and all.i
firm that would have that opportunity to
interact ly so
thank you was that Tagalog that I work
at one of the universities you got up
there and we're in the middle of upstate
New York so you know
diversity up there is it's kind of
limited except for the students they
bring in but the university has really
been intentional with their plans and
there's a Alliance for diversity and
inclusion that threats an internship
program every summer and that's their
purpose is to get diverse students into
finding such my team to come in and work
with us so they get that experience but
they also have students from other
universities that come too so it is an
intentional thing that Cornell's trying
to do all the kinetic roads are in fact
we would love to have these students
stay and work with us it's happening and
I think for anybody here who has a
university that is struggling with that
or as an alum of University contact them
they want you as an alone to speak well
of your university because they want you
to promote it
Oh having kids you know we're talking
about like the jobs coming and checking
out schools like that's like a certain
tier of employers that are actually
going out like doing college recruiting
and there's so many like smaller
companies in Technogel and seek out and
ethically it's really important for
anybody who's had college-age know that
like not all dogs ask about your GPA
it's probably like the first couple and
then nobody will ask about it you know
the future it's gonna be like all about
portfolio and job performance like if
you're if you're like a major city or
something I think a lot of college kids
might not be aware of some things like
the meetup see that actually you know
help you build out that Network and put
you in front of companies will hire you
like maybe you don't have to work two
jobs because you can find the place will
pay you enough you know something that's
like yeah more relevance actually your
goals you have so like there's there's
some ways that you can do these things
for yourself not necessarily you know if
we look at working like
yeah but I think that's a problem with
courier under matching your handy way
you can't see so if you have no
professionals in your life yeah yeah no
so that all they see is the ball yes
yeah so I think that's part of - is like
how do we get for our students as soon
as I work with expose to you know people
and other smaller firms where they would
have amazing growth opportunities
keep reserve a team
that's that's kind of what
I'm cool hey thank you everybody for
coming
find me on LinkedIn yeah awesome
everybody blessed
and press this button things don't end
it