Hispanic Jobs

Every job board offers the ability to post jobs, and most offer a searchable resume database. For the most part, they all claim to be “leaders” and tout traffic numbers in one way or another. LatPro, too, offers all of the above, has significant traffic, and considers itself the top job board for Hispanic and bilingual professionals. However, our product line goes beyond the surface of just “how many job postings” or “resume database for how long”.

So let me tell you some of the reasons why recruiters should purchase our products and what they get behind the scenes by using LatPro. (There are many reasons why job seekers also use LatPro, which when you think about it, is another reason our traffic is high and recruiters should use us as well).

Interested companies and recruiters can expect to speak with a professional sales person from LatPro, one who will answer their questions as well as ask questions to make the right recommendations based on the client’s needs and budget. Of course we have a general pricing summary, but we make sure that any potential client knows that we will work with them on a customized product solution for them specifically, no matter how far it diverges from the standard packages.

Part of the initial back-and-forth conversation will let the potential client know that LatPro has other products besides job postings and a resume database to help complement their diversity recruiting efforts. Companies can also advertise their career center with banners or fixed-position logos on the LatPro homepage or job search page. They can also send targeted email messages based on education, geography and many other criteria. LatPro is the producer of 9 diversity job fairs in 2008 which will give companies the ability to meet many potential candidates face-to-face as well as brand themselves as a diversity employer.

When you do post jobs with LatPro, your job is not only posted on our site but with the entire LatPro Network. Your jobs will go to sites such as DiversityJobs.com and many professional association sites like NSHP, NAHN and SHPE to name a few. This gives your job advertisements increased exposure to targeted candidates as well as recognition on the partner sites.

Every job you post on LatPro is reviewed manually for quality assurance. We will make sure that it is posted in the most effective way to bring quality results, and we will make recommendations on how to make it more attractive to job seekers—which may be adding more functions or better keywords or more information about your company. That is only one function of our customer support team. In a proactive way, they will help you with resume searching tips as well, showing you the best way to search, create folders and approach a search of the LatPro database.

When you do a search in the LatPro database, you have the ability to be completely OFCCP compliant if that rule applies to your company. When the rule was issued, LatPro decided it was very important to have an in-house customized solution to meet those guidelines.

Both recruiters and candidates also come to LatPro for our original content. LatPro’s staff writes its own articles as well as having exclusive contributors publish pieces on our site. We have started a Diversity Profiles series with some of the top companies in the country and have a long list of companies that are interested in participating (please let me know if you’d like to be considered for an interview after reviewing some of the prior ones).

LatPro publishes 3 double opt-in newsletters for Human Resource Professionals and job seekers. These provide news and information for their specific groups.

So sure. We want you to buy our products, post your jobs, send us your logos and banners. We’d love to host you at one of the job fairs this year as well. But I thought you should know all the other reasons you should use us. We are about our products but we are also all about service, and I hope it doesn’t sound overused or forced, but we are about happy customers.

Later this week, LatPro is going to have its quarterly meeting. Yep, it’s that time of the quarter when all the big wigs fly in and descend on Weston to set the company goals for the next quarter.

We always prepare our individual goals a few days ahead of time, so I’m putting together my list of recommendations. Then, at the actual meeting, we can spend our time in face-to-face conversation and brainstorming (which is really good considering we are spread out over many offices) to see what is really the best final path for the quarter. So far for me, I want to hire some sales people, I want to implement some new products and I want a CRM that is robust and well-supported by the provider. In addition, I’m going to make a movie (no, it’s not what you’re thinking; stay tuned for a later post for details on that). We will be working with NSHP on the 2009 schedule of diversity job fairs. We will surely continue the series of Corporate Diversity Profiles highlighting companies that value diversity in the workplace and their strategies. Now, I stay out of the techie stuff, but I’m betting there will be some upgrades in that arena too. Any input from our recruiting clients and jobseekers is appreciated. Seriously, if you have something to request, now’s the time to tell me for it to be considered.

LatPro started having quarterly meetings about two years ago, and they have been very valuable in tracking our progress and growth. We have been very aggressive in setting challenging goals, almost to the point of making things too difficult to accomplish. We have learned to function more as a team, however, realizing what needs to get done earlier on in the quarter because several others are relying on you to get some of their tasks done.

Does your company have quarterly (or regular) meetings to set an agenda and discuss strategy? What have you done or what are some tips that have made things more productive?

Yesterday, I had my first experience attending a NSHP/LatPro diversity job fair as part of the LatPro team. I arrived in Atlanta on Monday where I met Saini, Ricardo, Ivete, and Mike, all members of the LatPro and NSHP Diversity Job Fair task force. This was my first time meeting each of them, and we quickly said our introductions and got to work.

Prior to my arrival in Atlanta, I had imagined what the experience would be like, and pictured sitting here today writing about how hectic the day in Atlanta had been, how we spent most of our time putting out fires and bending over backward to make demanding exhibitors happy.

I am delighted to say that due to the hard work and organization of the NSHP and LatPro teams, my preconceptions of what the day would be like couldn’t have been farther from the truth! Saini and Ricardo from NSHP had been on-site since Sunday working out all the little details so the event would run like a well oiled machine. The rest of the LatPro sales team had been hard at work for months selling booth space to companies looking to fill bilingual jobs, and we were nearly at capacity.

Bright and early on the morning of the diversity job fair I made one more round of calls to our TV and Radio contacts in Atlanta. By 7:30 we had traveled across town and arrived at the venue, the Cobb Galleria Centre. The event staff had already set up the tables at the event so we just had to put finishing touches on the LatPro and NSHP booths before greeting the recruiters as they entered the venue.

Setup went seamlessly, and soon we were surround with colorful exhibits each offering a wealth of diversity employment opportunities. Once setup was complete, there were still a few minutes before the doors opened to jobseekers, which afforded me the opportunity to speak with some of the recruiters about how their companies value diversity in the workplace, and I was able to secure several companies for upcoming articles on LatPro.com.

Soon the chit-chat had to come to an end as the doors officially opened, and the large group of individuals seeking bilingual employment came through registration and began visiting the exhibits and speaking with the recruiters and organizations that were present.

The rest of the day seemed like a blur, but a very pleasant blur! None of my preconceived notions were actualized. The event ran so smoothly and recruiters and jobseekers alike commented on how organized, efficient, and valuable the event was. I had a great opportunity to get to speak with nearly all of the exhibitors throughout the day, and they were all very pleased with the quality and quantity of candidates in attendance. The only slightly negative thing I heard from an exhibitor was “I wished I had realized what a strong turnout there would be. We ran out of promotional items half way through the day!” To her, that may have been a negative thing that she felt ill-prepared, but to us that means the event was a resounding success!

Before I knew it, 2:30 had rolled around and for the first time all day, the steady stream of jobseekers gradually started to slow down. It certainly did not become a ghost-town however, and at precisely 3:00, there were still candidates standing in lines to speak with some of the companies present.

At the end of the day we had 685 resumes from job seekers who attended the event. We had also participated in several interviews with local radio and television stations about the event, and in addition to Ricardo, several of the jobseekers got an opportunity to appear on television describing their experience as well.

It was a long day, but not a stressful one. The event was a testament to the preparedness and extensive preparation that the NSHP and Latpro diversity job fair teams. I had a fantastic experience, and learned a lot about what participating candidates, organizations, and recruiters are looking for at hispanic job fairs. Taking part in this experience first-hand will certainly give me a leg up in promoting our upcoming Washington, DC diversity job fair on August 21st.

I am a bilingual professional -in fact trilingual- and if I had the face to stretch the truth I would say multilingual. I speak Spanish, my native language, English -my adopted language since I moved to the US- and if I practice I could probably get back to speaking French. I have a decent understanding of Portuguese and Italian when it comes to reading, but I can’t speak either.

But this posting is about what it means to be bilingual when we are talking about jobseekers. Normally, you would call bilingual someone that can manage in two languages, right? But what is “to manage”? Read, write and speak or just comprehend? Where you draw the line?

I am the kind that can be a bit of a perfectionist for some things, so for a long time I didn’t consider myself “fully bilingual” because I definitely have an accent when I speak and some weird grammar if I write in a rush. Being that my Spanish is impeccable, I felt that my English was not at the same level and I didn’t feel comfortable calling myself “fully bilingual”.

Big mistake. After some years I noticed that fully bilingual does not mean perfect. It means you can write, speak and read in any of those languages without struggling. Now, while knowing English is very important for any professional in my country of origin, being bilingual here in the US most of the time goes beyond the language.

And that is why at LatPro we believe that most of our jobseekers are not just bilingual but bicultural. Most of our candidates, not all of them of course, are second or third generation Hispanics. That means not only that they know the language, but they know the culture too. They know the American culture because that is what they live daily, but they know the values and priorities of the Hispanic culture. They have an insight that is extremely valuable for any company trying to reach that market.

So if you are a Hispanic jobseeker remember: you have an advantage, and that is that you are bicultural. “Fully bilingual” or not.

For most recruiters and HR professionals, SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, needs no introduction. SHRM offers lots of valuable learning opportunities and certifications amongst its benefits for the HR community.

But let me offer a little perspective on what exhibiting at SHRM does for LatPro and I’d guess lots of other job boards. SHRM has two sets of clients that it needs to make happy, so let me give some insight from the non-HR world. And yes, I know that there are many HR people and HR providers that are outside of the recruiting and job board world, but this is my post and I don’t work for those companies (certainly feel free to add your knowledge here with a reply about those areas).

Over the years, LatPro has exhibited at all of the different SHRM trade shows, trying to figure out which offered the most value for our business. Without a doubt, we’ve found that the Annual Conference provides the best opportunity to speak with high level HR executives and recruiting professionals. It also gives us the chance to see what other vendors and job boards are doing and to keep in touch with other business colleagues from other companies. We’ve also found the Staffing Management Conference (fka EMA) and Diversity Conference to be valuable targeted trade shows where we can meet a specific specialty of HR professionals that most closely match our business offerings.

Exhibiting at SHRM’s trade shows gives us the ability to have our company name and products in front of thousands of HR professionals that might not otherwise ever hear about LatPro and what we have to offer the recruiting and diversity areas of companies. It also adds a personal touch to meet long-time clients or new prospective customers face-to-face. Being an international company, my sales team operates mainly via telephone and email; however, these conferences offer the best opportunity to meet many people in person in one place over a short amount of time. If you are interested in what LatPro has to offer your company, and would like to meet us at the Annual SHRM show at the end of this month, give me a call or send me an email and I’ll send you one of our complimentary Free Expo Passes. The Annual Conference is June 22-24 in Chicago.

Hope to see you in Chicago!

Away from the Lighter Side of LatPro are more serious issues that face the LatPro team and the Hispanic population in general. Racism, bigotry, and general anger are out there. Here’s a bit about what I think of some of these issues, as much of the hatred comes to my email inbox.

People need to think before they start typing, you know, with brain and fingers somehow connected. I’ve received a number of nasty emails from people over the years, and I get them from small companies and large, without the authors taking any time to consider that they are the ones who are not thinking things through, but rather reacting on either emotion or just pure bigotry. Some of course hide behind the anonymity of an AOL or YAHOO email address, and I have little desire to find out their identities, but others have no qualms about leaving their names and phone numbers too.

Rather than be all negative and give credence to these people and their comments, I will just show some excerpts from a toned-down sample from my special Outlook folder.

For example, I have gotten several requests to create “WHITE PRO” (which is such an original take on our LatPro name). These requests ALWAYS come as they are characterizing Hispanics as non-educated, non-English speaking illegals. These messages also always say something about racism as well.

First, I will never apologize for promoting the heritage and unique skills of LatPro’s members. Why would I do that? How many thousands of groups are there that do the same without being subjected to the same type of insults hurled in this direction? Engineers, Doctors, Home Builders, etc. If they are mad because of the word Hispanic, then they need to realize we are promoting Hispanics not because of some EEO rules or quotas, but rather for the unique lingual and cultural skills that make corporations and their employees thrive in an international world.

Second, what makes these people think that just because you’re Hispanic means that you’re White? Hispanic has nothing to do with race, as there are Hispanics of many races.

Next, Hispanic is a term created by the US government. Ask any person from Latin or South America and they will tell you they are Guatemalan, Ecuadorian, Colombian, whatever. They will not say they are Hispanic-that is a US invented word.

And guess what? I am not Hispanic. But my US Citizen wife is from Colombia, she is Hispanic, she is educated, and she is completely fluent in English. Same goes for my kids, born in the US, bilingual and proud of their heritage. The stereotype doesn’t fit them, and it doesn’t fit most Hispanics in LatPro’s membership either.

I am posting this to show what types of intolerant, ignorant and bigoted people are still out there in this country. I am sure that with some effort and education, future generations of all ethnicities will have the ability to live and work together with respect, while still preserving and promoting their own cultures and backgrounds. Having bilingual and multicultural employees in your company will give you an advantage in today’s business environment.

On May 1st, 2008, the US Census Bureau released new figures related to minorities. The nation’s Hispanic population increased 1.4 million to reach 45.5 million on July 1, 2007, or 15.1 percent of the estimated total U.S. population of 301.6 million.

While Hispanics remained the largest minority group, with blacks (single race or multiracial) second at 40.7 million in 2007, it seems that the Hispanic population is still more concentrated in some areas: National and state estimates by race, origin, sex and age also show that the Hispanic population exceeded 500,000 in 16 states; the black population exceeded 500,000 in 20 states. Blacks were the largest minority group in 24 states, compared with 20 states in which Hispanics were the largest minority group.

With a 3.3 percent increase between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, Hispanics were the fastest-growing minority group. Asians were the second fastest-growing minority group, with a 2.9 percent population increase during the period. The white population grew by 0.3 percent during the one-year period.

Overall, the nation’s minority population reached 102.5 million in 2007 — 34 percent of the total. California had a minority population of 20.9 million — 20 percent of the nation’s total, Texas had a minority population of 12.5 million — 12 percent of the U.S. total.

Four states and the District of Columbia were “majority-minority” (i.e., more than 50 percent of their population is made up of people other than single-race non-Hispanic whites). Hawaii led the nation with a population that was 75 percent minority in 2007, followed by the District of Columbia (68 percent), New Mexico (58 percent), California (57 percent) and Texas (52 percent). Next in line, though not majority-minority, were Nevada, Maryland and Georgia, each with a minority population of 42 percent

Some other highlights about the Hispanic population:

* California (13.2 million) had the largest Hispanic population of any state as of July 1, 2007, followed by Texas (8.6 million) and Florida (3.8 million). Texas had the largest numerical increase between 2006 and 2007 (308,000), followed by California (268,000) and Florida (131,000). In New Mexico, Hispanics comprised the highest proportion of the total population (44 percent), with California and Texas (36 percent each) next in line.

* The Hispanic population in 2007 had a median age of 27.6, compared with the population as a whole at 36.6. Almost 34 percent of the Hispanic population was younger than 18, compared with 25 percent of the total population.

This week at LatPro, we were thrilled to be approached by Sue Kirchhoff, a writer from USA Today. Sue was working on an article related to Hispanics and the economy, and came to us as an authority on Hispanic Americans in professional career fields. We were glad to serve as her go-to source for the professional Hispanic perspective.

While performing research for her article Slow economy hits Hispanics hard, Sue found that the current U.S. economic downturn has had a greater impact on Hispanics than the overall U.S. population. She came to LatPro to see if that trend held true for professional, college-educated Hispanics.

As I told Sue, LatPro hasn’t seen a drop in the number of companies that want to recruit Hispanic professionals or a spike in new candidates that could indicate an increase in unemployment for this demographic.

Why this discrepancy? Why does the LatPro demographic (college educated, bilingual Latinos) seem to be experiencing lower unemployment that the general Hispanic population?

I think a likely explanation is that general unemployment figures for Hispanics include all Hispanics. Just like any other group, Hispanics are employed in a wide range of positions, from service industries and manufacturing all the way up to executive positions. But there are also a large number of Hispanics in fields that are affected by the mortgage meltdown and housing crisis, such as construction and other trades related to homebuilding. These types of positions are especially vulnerable to job cuts.

It’s a different story when you look specifically at Latinos who have obtained a college degree. These professional-level Hispanics have a variety of skills that are valued by employers, even in this slow employment market. They are a triple threat – bringing not only education and training within their field, but also cultural insight and language skills to the table. Bilingual employees give employers more bang for their buck.

I also see this reflected in our diversity job fairs geared toward Hispanic and bilingual professionals. Despite the economy, companies are still investing in recruiting events like the NSHP-LatPro diversity job fairs, and we still have to advertise the job fair to professional Hispanic candidates (they aren’t just showing up because of an unemployment spike).

To read Sue’s full article, please click here.

While exploring our historical information (from 2000 to April 2008) we found the top 10 states with highest demand for Hispanic professionals are:

1. California
2. New York
3. Texas
4. Florida
5. Nevada
6. Illinois
7. New Jersey
8. Maryland
9. Ohio
10. Georgia

But those numbers can change quickly. For example, in 2005, the Top 10 States with highest demand for Hispanic professionals were as follows:

1. California
2. Texas
3. New Jersey
4. Illinois
5. New York
6. Maryland
7. Florida
8. Virginia
9. Minnesota
10. Pennsylvania

Now, in April 2008, the list of 10 Top States with highest demand for Hispanic professionals reads:

1. Texas
2. Washington
3. Ohio
4. California
5. Maryland
6. New York
7. Illinois
8. Florida
9. Georgia
10. Nevada

So while some states seem to have a steady presence among the Top 10 (New York, Texas California and Florida) some others like Maryland, Ohio and Nevada are experiencing growth when it comes to the demand for Hispanic professionals.

Source: LatPro.com

A new study points out the obvious correlation between globalization and diversity. As US companies push into Mexico, Argentina, Brazil etc. they must hire and train Spanish and Portuguese bilinguals. Next comes diversity training to help integrate apples and oranges with mangoes and papayas.

More employers have broadened their diversity efforts because of the impact of globalization, according to a survey of more than 2,500 senior HR and training executives in the U.S. and Canada by Novations Group, a consulting firm based in Boston.

Over 40% of organizations have already expanded the scope of their diversity and inclusion programming, up from just 15% in 2005, the last time the issue was addressed by Novations in a survey. Moreover, another 24% of employers expect to broaden their efforts in the near future, according to the survey.

“Organizations are responding to the changing demographics of their workforce as well as the need to deliver consistent global training programs,” said Novations Vice President Ron Adderley. “Classic U.S.-centric diversity programs are simply not effective strategies in today’s global marketplace”.

Has your organization had to broaden the scope of its diversity and inclusion programs because of increasing globalization?

Yes - 41%

Not yet, but we expect to in the near future - 24%

No, and we don’t expect to in the near future - 35%