This tech platform is giving college job fairs a DEI makeover

Businesses and Gen Z agree on at least one thing: Diversity, equity and inclusion is vital to any organization's success. But do these two parties know how to find each other as the workforce grows?

Gen Z currently makes up 30% of the global population, according to the World Economic Forum. By 2025, they're expected to account for 27% of the global workforce. Gen Z is more diverse than any previous generation, according to Pew Research, and also prioritizes diversity and inclusion when it comes to imagining their futures. But sharing their own strengths with potential employers can still feel like a hurdle for these new professionals. 

"The amount of time that students spend on silly things like resume formatting takes away from learning how to tell their story," says Byron Slosar, founder of HelloHive, a career development and recruiting platform. "[We] teach students to first answer the questions, 'Who am I as a person? Why am I relevant?'" 

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HelloHive's approach to recruiting depends on creating networks of two communities: students and early career applicants; and industry professionals. The platform, which is free of charge for students, helps them connect virtually with employers directly, and prioritizes creating opportunities for underprivileged or under-resourced students, such as racial minorities, first generation college graduates and students in the LGBTQ community. 

"If I can talk to someone about identifying as LGBT, but more importantly that I'm a gay southern Jew from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who went to Catholic school my entire life, I can talk about how this context is relevant to the workforce," Slosar says, using his own experience as an example. "I know how to be outspoken and how to stand up for myself and communicate my identity without feeling tokenized."  

Largely due to the pandemic, fewer students are using in-person career centers at universities than they were pre-COVID. Out of Hive's own cohort, which is made up of close to 23,000 students and recent grads from 1,400 colleges and universities, fewer than 40% are utilizing on-campus resources as they job search, opting instead to get external help from platforms and resources that offer more intersectionality, according to Slosar. That means that companies' more traditional methods of recruitment may fail to produce valuable outcomes.

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For the companies that are part of Hive's network, which includes large corporations such as Disney and Goldman Sachs, a partnership with HelloHive offers them the chance to interact with the prospective employees within marginalized communities, and supports them in recruiting talent. The participating companies are invited to join Hive-hosted events hrough a massive Zoom call for easy and equitable access. Sometimes the events will be centered around a specific company that can speak to particular subject matters. 

"The programs are usually three days," says Slosar. "A company will come in and on night one, they'll do storytelling through senior executives. Night two, they'll talk about DEI professionals and early career recruiters. Night three, we kick all of the adults out of the room, have recent grads from the firms come in and we do an Ask Me Anything session."

In the past, Hive has hosted programs specifically for first-generation college students, where they've gotten the opportunity to interact with working professionals from similar backgrounds as them. Technology consulting company Accenture has participated in similar program formats where they focus on technology and what opportunities exist in that space, particularly those that students may not be familiar with. 

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In a recent program that HelloHive hosted geared towards students looking for a career in financial services, Slosar shared that out of the 400 students that showed up to the event, 100 were in the kind of qualification zone for an open role at a participating bank. Twenty ended up getting hired.

"We serve as that lead gen and create brand awareness so that these applicants arrive more informed, and they transact so much easier," Slosar says. "They'll do the work in their internships and jobs, but that stuff isn't as hard if we're doing the heavy lift right now."

HelloHive's goal is to make early engagement programs as inclusive as possible for incoming students, so that diversity is cultivated and celebrated from the very beginning of an employees' career so that everyone is on an even playing field when it comes time for job hunts.  

"The traditional stuff still works but it just doesn't work for everybody," Slosar says. "In an ideal world, technology enhances equitable access for me as the student to understand that I matter as a person and a professional, that I have the choice to raise my hand."