HBCUConnect.com, in partnership with Microsoft, recently held a successful diversity recruitment and networking event for Black HR professionals in the Washington D.C. area.
Attended by over 65 guests, including leadership from Microsoft, HBCUConnect.com and National Association of African Americans in Human Resources (NAAAHR), the event allowed attendees to make new connections with area colleagues as well as network with Microsoft personnel in order to discuss potential career opportunities.
“Microsoft is well-known as a supporter of diversity in the workplace,” explains Will Moss, founder and CEO of HBCUConnect.com. “Their opinion is that more diversity leads to more impressive innovation and better ideas, two concepts that are especially important in the software and high-tech industries.”
The event included a presentation from Gwen Houston, General Manager, Diversity & Inclusion, whose statement on the Microsoft website states, “Building an inclusive organization is not just about the diversity scorecard data we track to measure our progress. It is as much about our attitude and behaviors as leaders and having a sense of empathy for the different experiences that people go through. The ability to effectively engage and work with others who are different from us is not necessarily an innate skill; it must be learned.”
The event was conceptualized, managed and hosted by HBCUConnect.com in partnership with Microsoft’s Corporate HR Staffing team. This is the second event that HBCUConnect.com has executed with Microsoft; the previous event, held in 2013, focused on recruiting black software engineers, a field traditionally dominated by younger Caucasian males.
HBCUConnect.com is planning another event for Microsoft toward the end of May, as well as a career fair in collaboration with the Atlanta Greek Picnic weekend in June 2014.
Microsoft, founded in 1975, is considered a world leader in office productivity software. The company's workforce recently saw an increase in minorities from 36 percent in 2012 to 38 percent in the 2013 fiscal year.
HBCUConnect.com was established to help students and graduates of Historically Black Colleges and University better connect with each other and with scholarships, internship and career opportunities.
Companies interested in executing similar events targeting African American professionals should contact Daniel Moss at dmoss@hbcuconnect.com.
HR professionals should visit
www.hbcuconnect.com/microsoft/hr for more opportunities.
Posted By: Cheer Leader
Wednesday, April 23rd 2014 at 12:31PM
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