I have applied for multiple positions at my company for which I’m qualified, but I haven’t been selected for any of them. How do I know if race or gender is playing a factor?

If you have the experience the position requires and good performance reviews, it may be tempting to wonder about the factor diversity dimensions play in the selection process, particularly if your company has a diversity initiative. Before going there, I’d ask a few questions — Am I being selective in applying for the right positions that truly play to my strengths? I’ve seen many instances where employees put in for jobs using the “shotgun” approach, hoping that after expressing interest in many opportunities, one will stick. You don’t want to be known as a “serial applicant.” It sends the message you may be desperate and trying to get out of a situation rather than strategically move to a new one where you can have the greatest impact. I’d also ask if my resume strongly reflects the background and skills I have that are required for the job. How does it read to someone who may not know anything about me?

I once counseled an employee who had a great background in sales, but over a period of several months, applying for every sales position that came up, had no luck.  We worked together on the presentation of his experiences via his resume and two weeks later, he landed a sales-training role, which was perfect for his background.  Hiring managers were having a difficult time understanding the strength of his sales background due to the presentation of his resume. Make sure your resume reads in a way that speaks strongly to the attributes required for the job.

Last, how are your interviewing skills? Are your answers relevant, and succinct yet impactful to the questions being asked?  Practice interviewing with a co-worker, spouse or friend. Video yourself. There are a number of ways you can assess your interviewing skills. Once you have done all these things and still find you’re not landing the opportunities you want, talk to Human Resources. There could be other issues with the organization you are pursuing that you may not know about, such as an imminent change in leadership or a re-organization. If race or gender is playing a factor, a good HR professional will sniff that out, without you having to ask them to check into it. However, bringing up your concern to HR is fair game as well. Just make sure you’ve done your homework in advance and polished the presentation of your skills so that your not being selected is tough to attribute to other factors.

I do a good job at work, but no one knows me. How do I raise my profile inside my organization?

One of the most common misperceptions diverse employees have is,” if I just keep my head down, work hard, and do a good job, eventually someone will notice me and opportunities will come.” Wrong. In today’s dynamic, fast-paced environment, you have to work it. Continue working hard and doing a good job, but pursue projects at work outside of your day-to-day job that will lend itself to greater visibility. Sign up to work on that project presented in the department staff meeting, for example. If you’re not sure where to start, let your manager know you’re interested in contributing your skills to an initiative outside your everyday role. Cross-functional projects are great for building your visibility; your skills can be observed not only by those in your department, but throughout the company.

It’s great for your profile to have positive buzz about you coming from outside your immediate workgroup or business unit. Do you have some suggestions for how to improve the annual sales conference? Find out who’s responsible for organizing the event and write he/she a letter with your suggestions, emphasizing that you would be happy to help implement them. You may just open the door for yourself to work on the sales conference committee, or better yet, lead the group responsible for implementing your ideas.

Other options may include volunteering your time for one of your company employee-affinity groups or signing up to work with your employee activities association. Involvement with organizations outside the company helps raise your profile inside the company as well. If your time allows, don’t be afraid to take an officer role within your local chapter of a professional association or sit on the board of your favorite non-profit, asking your company to make a donation.

By doing some of these things, you will position your skills to be seen by many others from inside and outside the firm, further increasing your visibility. By distinguishing yourself this way, you’ll find yourself stronger networked and better informed about the various opportunities available.

Why Are You Really Taking That Sick Day? Is it because you absolutely need a break from job-related stress? There are better ways to cope.

Have you ever taken a sick day from work because you’re sick and tired of the stress your job brings? According to the American Psychological Association, one in four American workers has called in sick or taken a “mental health day” as a result of work-related stress.

Perhaps you took that sick time to “play hooky” on a sunny day and head to the beach; or maybe you simply buried your head under the covers and caught up on some much-needed sleep. But maybe the pressure of office politics, perpetual deadlines, and looming layoffs really made you ill that day. According to St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance, problems at work are more strongly associated with health complaints than are any other life stressor.

For black professionals, the link between workplace stress and health can be especially strong. “The reality of being black in America today creates experiences of anxiety and stress,” says Toby Thompkins, an executive coach and organizational development consultant based in New York City. Workplace discrimination and isolation can be a part of that reality. However, “a big part of our self-worth is built around ability to deal with stress, to ‘make it happen,’ to rise above whatever particular sort of struggle or obstacle that we have, so we don’t identify stress as the killer that it is,” he explains.

This problem is especially acute among Black women, who are conditioned to define themselves according to their ability to handle life’s burdens, says Thompkins, who is also the author of The Real Lives of Strong Black Women: Transcending Myths, Reclaiming Joy (Agate, $26.50). It’s no wonder that nearly three in ten of Black women responding to a 2004 NiaPulse survey reported feeling “stressed out” daily.

Regardless of gender, physical disorders such as high blood pressure and diabetes, which occur at disproportionately higher rates in African Americans than in the general population, can result from workplace stress. Depression and mental health problems, conditions for which blacks are less likely to be treated, can also result.

“We don’t recognize that stress is the precursor to depression in our lives,” says Thompkins. The anger that we have about not being able to handle stress that in many cases happens because we’re black people, is turned inward. And then when it’s turned inward, it becomes depression.”

If you believe you are depressed, you should seek help from a mental health professional. If you believe you’re not there yet, but that the “mental health days” are starting to pile up, there are some measures Thompkins recommends for handling workplace stress:

Get a mentor. “You need someone who will not only help you manage your career, but help you adopt the appropriate coping mechanisms when you are confronted with daily politics and realities of the workplace,” says Thompkins. “You need that person with whom you can pick up the phone and say, ‘Let’s go have coffee,’  or ‘Let’s go take a walk around the block,’” and talk about what’s bothering you. “That person doesn’t have to be the one who’s going to help you get the promotion. It can be the person you trust on your floor, or your friend across town.”

Get a career coach if you’re going through a career transition. “When you get a job promotion, move to a new company, or go to a new department and you need to figure out the rules, get a coach to help with the transition period,” says Thompkins. Coaches can be especially helpful to black professionals, who are less likely to have an informal network of people they can trust to show them the ropes, thereby easing the stress of transitions.

Get unplugged. We use our Blackberries and iPhones to stay in constant communication with colleagues and friends, but don’t be so available to others that you aren’t available to yourself. Thompkins says his own recent experience with a stress-related health crisis drove this point home for him. “I’m a chronic nurturer, so I was investing a lot of time in helping other people to go forward, which meant that I didn’t have time for myself,” he explains. After he landed in the hospital, he realized he had to redefine boundaries with the people in his life, including when he could be reached. “I had to learn how to let phone calls go to voicemail. Leaving the phone on all the time is like leaving a source of stress running in your life, 24 hours a day.”

Get outside! “Get in touch with nature. Black folks, we don’t do that,” says Thompkins. Head to the nearest park, or go golfing. “A lot of our non-black colleagues are spending their weekends on bikes, doing things that enable them to release stress and build a reserve for the week that follows,” he explains. “Our way of doing that is to go to church on Sunday morning. At best, we strengthen ourselves spiritually, but that doesn’t take care of the emotional and the physical part if the equation. So if you can spend several hours in church on Sunday, you can spend 30 minutes walking around the neighborhood.”

Remember, the ability to handle stress is not a badge of honor. It’s simply what you must have in order to take good care of yourself.

Cheryl Mayberry McKissack and Sheryl Huggins are coeditors of The Nia Guide For Black Women series of self-improvement books, including Balancing Work and Life (Agate Publishing, $12.95). Mayberry McKissack is also founder and CEO of Nia Enterprises, LLC, a Chicago-based company providing research and marketing services focused on Black women and families. Nia Enterprises also publishes NiaOnline (www.niaonline.com) of which Huggins is editor-in-chief.

At work or on the street, the racial spectrum of America is changing rapidly.  If you follow the latest headlines, there seems to be a valid explanation.  According to the US Census Bureau, by 2050 one out of every four Americans will be of Hispanic decent.  What’s even more impressive; however, are the projected number of individuals. Currently at 44 million and growing, the Hispanic population is expected to more than double, reaching 100 million in that same time period.

But if the Hispanic population is booming, why has it been so difficult for corporations to attract, hire, and retain Hispanic professionals?

The problem of attracting Hispanic hires is more deeply rooted than meets the eye. With over 78 million baby-boomers set to retire in the next two decades, the Census Bureau estimates that their exodus from the workforce will generate approximately 35 million job openings, and the growing crop of minority candidates, among them Hispanics, will eventually fill a large portion of them.

At present, the pipeline of available Hispanic professionals is scant at best. According to the National Society of Hispanic MBA’s Research Department (www.nshmba.org), Hispanic professionals currently represent 7% of the white-collar workforce.  At such a low figure, it should be no surprise why human resources departments have been working overtime to come up with successful ways to attract and retain them.

Contrary to popular belief, the pool of available bilingual Hispanics with sufficient professional working experience continues to grow smaller, not larger.  Part of the reason can be attributed to the increasing competition among corporations looking for similar Hispanic talent. In addition, the number of qualified candidates is shrinking because the majority of Hispanics are too young. According to the Pew Hispanic Center (www.pewhispanic.org), the average age of 60% of the country’s Hispanics is just 13.

The increasing quest for qualified candidates able to communicate effectively with Hispanics has created a need for innovative solutions. Currently, the most common options companies use to access Hispanic professionals include career expos and executive search firms. Career expos provide a large number of targeted candidates in a brief period of time, but may require an entourage of interviewers. If the event occurs when job openings are available, this option can present a quick-fix solution. However, for a more continuous flow of qualified candidates, some firms hire executive search services that have access to an extensive network of potential candidates and active jobseekers. Some search firms focus specifically on attracting candidates directly from a client’s competitor.

Surprisingly, these tried-and-true options haven’t rendered favorable results with Hispanic candidates –– some of the problems? First, career expos targeting Hispanic candidates are also attracting many more candidates from other ethnic groups, resulting in lower-than-expected qualified Hispanic candidates. Moreover, many executive search firms, particularly the larger ones, are too impersonal to attract qualified Hispanic candidates.

So what have some companies done to attract and retain Hispanic professionals? One Fortune 100 firm in the financial services industry decided to take a different approach.  Rather than focus its resources to attract Hispanic professionals, it chose to invest in its existing pool of employees by hiring an outside firm to teach its non-Hispanic employees some of the basic cultural selling skills needed to close and maintain a transaction with Hispanic consumers. In part, it chose to ‘Hispanisize’ its non-Hispanic workforce.

Hispanisizing a non-Hispanic workforce can help position Hispanic consumers as business case managers and salespeople can readily understand and follow. It can also open new channels of communication among employees and their managers who in the past may have felt uncomfortable addressing Hispanic-related issues. The business-case approach allows various skill-sets within an organization that tweak the traditional approaches to improve Hispanic consumer appeal. To achieve a high level of acceptance within an organization, the participation among the workforce must include the direct involvement and financial commitment of senior-level managers.

Other firms turn to smaller executive search firms that specialize in hiring Hispanics. They tap their personal networks to gain access to a larger pool of potential Hispanic professional candidates.

Even after spending substantial resources to attract Hispanic hires, companies are also faced with the daunting task of retaining them. Without a comprehensive and culturally sensitive support program, Hispanic hires can easily get lost in a faceless corporate business environment. Some companies have launched mentoring programs to give new hires more meaningful access to a company’s career opportunities.  According to the June 2007 Business Journal on Hispanic Research, Hispanic mentors were found to be less effective than their non-Hispanic counterparts. Some of the reasons cited ranged from a potential mismatch among Hispanic cultures to a mentor’s lack of influence at key decision-making levels, and that non-Hispanic mentors may have greater influence within an organization, but could lack the cultural-sensitivity and appreciation needed to mentor a new Hispanic hire.

To fully appreciate the increasing complexity of hiring Hispanic professionals, one can begin to see that unless a non-Hispanic mentor is fully sensitized or Hispanicized, the chances of retaining a new hire may be reduced substantially.

by Dr. Herbert C. Smith

After years of relative stability, knowledgeable workers in global organizations have begun to behave like free-agent athletes in professional sports. For the past several years, we have witnessed an increase in the number of individuals deciding to change jobs. The decision to test the market, barter their skills on the open market, and associate with new organizations has senior leaders and human resources executives scrambling for answers. Talented individuals have caused the quit rate, which measures workers’ ability to change jobs, to rise recently, and there’s no indication of a slowdown. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the quit rate reached a four-year high in September 2005.  It seems the American workforce settled down after the events of September 11, 2001.  Now, there’s a new game being played. The stakes are very high and could impact our commercial performance globally, and it bodes well for recruiters in the Talent Acquisition Championships.

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By Calvin Bruce, M.A.

“Amid the twofold pressure of pending retirement in senior executive ranks and the increasing value of intellectual capital and knowledge management, it is more necessary than ever before for organizations to plan for leadership continuity and employee advancement at all levels.”

– William Rothwell, Corporate Succession Planning

It’s commonly understood that one of the essential missions of a forward-thinking company is to preserve the corporate integrity, leadership capability, and financial resourcefulness of the organization in the event something unforeseen happens to one or more key executives. This is why, in firms of all sizes, it’s important to have “key-man insurance” in place, as well as other legal and financial instruments to maintain the continuation and well-being of the corporation. A consulting firm specializing in corporate succession planning (CSP) points out the elements of planning analysis that are especially beneficial for family-owned businesses: Business objectives, family dynamics/objectives, owner/manager estate plans, key-employee compensation, business valuation, transition financing, tax planning, estate liquidity, active/inactive family-member issues, and senior-generation retirement security.
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Increasingly, organizations that have made a serious commitment to diversity and inclusion are taking a hard look at hiring, turnover and promotion patterns, and challenging themselves with the question, “are there subtle biases operating in these decision-making processes?” Read the full story