Thank you Alberto!!

Beware the Professional Hispanic: Professional Hispanics are folks who are Hispanic and have chosen their ethnicity as their profession.

In my previous post, I discussed the danger to clients of the mainstream agency’s Hispanic-acquisition practice of “poach the junior talent at Hispanic shops by promoting them beyond their capabilities.” Catchy, isn’t it? The point was that the same individual who a client might not have invited to planning meetings, for example, the next day might be in charge of that very planning.

A related practice exists in the client ranks and it is equally dangerous and even more pervasive in the industry. The practice is that of the Professional Hispanic vs. the Hispanic Professional.

Professional Hispanics have been around for a long time in the Hispanic Marketing world, but are becoming more widespread with the growth in importance and prevalence of Hispanic Marketing in organizations.

Professional Hispanic Defined
Professional Hispanics are folks who are Hispanic and have chosen their ethnicity as their profession. They have no specific expertise in Hispanic Marketing (or even marketing per se, for that matter) but rather ride the ethnicity of their name to define and build their career.

They can come from all walks of life in a client organization and from all levels. However, they are usually from junior levels because (a) the organizations that choose these folks to lead their Hispanic Marketing are usually companies that don’t value Hispanic that much and thus have these positions at relatively low levels in the organization, and (b) these same organizations are not those where Hispanics have reached high positions in the company.

Professional Hispanics usually see the market with very old-fashioned, traditional eyes (what they remember from growing up) rather than seeing it as the vibrant, ever-changing, dynamic, complex space it actually is. They tend to prefer things like street festivals and local radio. This is because they are not really marketers and thus do not continue learning about the market, changing with it, experimenting with it, etc. They continue using their personal experience as a filter, not realizing that their own selves 10 to 15 years ago are not the target.

Hispanic Professional Defined
Hispanic Professionals are good marketers who understand their target market, are experts in engaging with the target, exhibit savvy communications decision-making, etc. They just happen to be Hispanic and working in Hispanic Marketing at their organizations.

These folks have passion for what they do and believe in the potential of the Hispanic market. They usually come from marketing and communications backgrounds and have the experience and education of solid marketing professionals.

The key difference is that while Professional Hispanics ride their culture and ethnicity to career advancement, Hispanic Professionals leverage their efforts, experience and expertise. Do multicultural marketers have to belong to a particular ethnic group? That’s for another post.

I would defer to my fellow bloggers on this issue, but I would not be surprised if this issue was the same in terms of marketing to Black and Asian-American targets.

Appointing Professional Hispanics to these marketing posts is a risky proposition for clients. They are in effect putting a key portion of their marketing in the hands of unqualified people. They will end up with bland, ineffective, uninspired me-too marketing to Hispanics.

We all know how difficult it is to find good Hispanic Professionals in this tight talent environment. However, I strongly recommend to client organizations that they look harder and deeper for the right people, design the positions at the appropriate levels of responsibility and compensation, and monitor their performance more closely.

At our agency, when evaluating potential client relationships, this is one of the factors we consider. The multicultural markets are just too important to most companies’ bottom line to leave that up to folks whose only Hispanic expertise lies in their name or ethnicity. Invest in hiring the right people and enjoy the full benefits of the opportunity these markets have to offer

Only 6% out of 384 open board positions are held by Hispanics. And of the 1,281 executive and director positions available, Hispanics held only 61 positions.

The Hispanic Association for Corporate Responsibility (HACR), one of the most influential advocacy organizations in the nation representing 13 national Hispanic organizations in the United States and Puerto Rico, will release the finding of its 2009 HACR Corporate Inclusion Index survey (CII), Wednesday, December 16th at 11:30 am at the Cannon House Office Building, Room 121, Independence Avenue and 1st Street, SE.

Source: HACR

Managers' Hiring Practices Vary By Race, Ethnicity Says University of Miami Study

White, Asian and Hispanic managers tend to hire more whites and fewer blacks than black managers do, according to a new study out of the University of Miami School of Business Administration.

Using more than two years of personnel data from a large U.S. retail chain, the study found that when a black manager in a typical store is replaced by a white, Asian or Hispanic manager, the share of newly hired blacks falls from 21 to 17 percent, and the share of whites hired rises from 60 to 64 percent. The effect is even stronger for stores located in the South, where the replacement of a black manager causes the share of newly hired blacks to fall from 29 to 21 percent. In locations with large Hispanic populations, Hispanics hire more Hispanics and fewer whites than white managers. The study is out this month in the Journal of Labor Economics.

The finding is clear evidence that the race or ethnicity of those who make hiring decisions can have a strong impact in the racial makeup of a company’s workforce, says Laura Giuliano, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Miami School of Business, who authored the study with David Levine and Jonathan Leonard from the University of California, Berkeley.

How strong is the impact? Consider a typical store with 40 employees located in the Southern U.S. According to the data, replacing a black manager with a non-black manager would result in the replacement of three to four black workers with white workers over the course of one year.

The effect in a non-Southern store would also be significant, if a bit more subtle. Replacing a black manager in a non-Southern store would result in one black worker being replaced by a white worker over a year.

“From the viewpoint of a district manager who is observing just a small sample of stores, this change might go unnoticed or appear insignificant,” Giuliano said. “However, the change may appear more significant from the point of view of job seekers — and especially black job seekers. In fact, the change in non-Southern stores amounts to a proportional decline of 15 percent in the number of blacks employed.”

The data used by Giuliano and her colleagues were especially well suited to sorting out the role race plays in hiring. While previous studies have also suggested that manager race plays a role, those studies have been unable to distinguish that role from other factors such as the demographic makeup of the local labor pool. Giuliano and her colleagues were able to isolate the race factor by tracking individual stores that experienced a change of manager.

“This means we can compare the hiring patterns of consecutive managers of different races in the same store,” she said. “Hence we can isolate the effect of a manager’s race by comparing the hiring patterns of managers when they hire from similar labor pools under similar conditions.”

The researchers were also able to use their data to offer some partial explanations for why these differences in hiring patterns exist.

They found that both black and non-black managers tend to hire people who live close to them. So if black managers live in predominantly black neighborhoods, their hiring network is also likely to be predominantly black.

The research also suggests that black managers hire fewer whites because whites may be less willing to work for black managers. The study found that when a white manager is replaced with a black manager, the rate at which white workers quit their jobs increases by 15 percent.

“We interpret this increase in the white quit rate as evidence of discriminatory sorting by white job seekers,” the authors write. “It implies that whites who dislike working for black managers often avoid working for black managers in the first place.”

About the University of Miami School of Business Administration

The University of Miami School of Business Administration is a comprehensive business school, offering undergraduate business, full-time MBA, Executive MBA, MS, PhD and non-degree executive education programs. One of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Miami, the School is located in a major hub of international trade and commerce and acclaimed for the global orientation and diversity of its faculty, students and curriculum. The School delivers its programs at its main campus in Coral Gables as well as at locations across Florida and abroad. More information about the University of Miami School of Business can be found at www.bus.miami.edu.

NOTE TO EDITORS: A full copy of the study is available upon request. The University of Miami has a television studio on campus and can provide live expert interviews via satellite or Vyvx fiber.

    Media Contact:
    Tracy Simon
    University of Miami School of Business Administration
    267-679-2774
    tsimon@sba.umiami.edu

SOURCE University of Miami School of Business Administration

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., June 29 /PRNewswire/ — The June 2009 issue of Hispanic Business magazine features the 27th annual Hispanic Business 500, the benchmark directory of the 500 largest Hispanic-owned companies in the United States.

The annual Hispanic Business 500 directory is widely recognized as the barometer of the U.S. Hispanic economy. Cumulative revenues for the directory totaled $36.15 billion, a slight increase from 2008, which totaled $36.10 billion. A searchable directory of the 2009 Hispanic Business 500 is available now on the magazine’s companion web site, HispanicBusiness.com.

For the third straight year, the HB 500′s top-ranked company was the aptly named Brightstar, a global telecom wholesaler. Though the company posted a dip in revenue of 2.35 percent, it still managed to bring in $3.6 billion.

The surprising bright spot of this year’s list was the financial sector, which posted an impressive 17.2 percent boost in revenues. Pan-American Life Insurance Co. of New Orleans was among the successful businesses in this category, showing an 11 percent gain in revenue over the previous year, as well as a healthy 6 percent profit.

Companies included in the 500 must show at least 51 percent ownership by Hispanic U.S. citizens and must maintain headquarters in one of the 50 states or Washington, D.C. Principals must be U.S. citizens.

For more information, go to http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/rankings/hispanic_companies/

MillerCoors pledged Friday to increase economic opportunities for Hispanics through an agreement with the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility.

Through the joint agreement, MillerCoors and the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility promise to increase and enhance economic opportunities for Hispanics through increased participation in key corporate initiatives such as leadership and work force development, procurement and supplier diversity, marketing and advertising, and community contributions.

“Growing and leveraging diversity will provide MillerCoors with a competitive advantage that will not only strengthen our business, but also strengthen the Hispanic community,” said Leo Kiely, MillerCoors CEO. “Through this agreement we will be able to use our collective power to achieve an important goal for both our organizations, to have Hispanics participating at greater levels in our business.”

The new five-year agreement is the first since MillerCoors was created in July 2008. Coors was a founding corporate member of HACR and has maintained an agreement since 1986.

“It is gratifying to see that MillerCoors recognizes the growing influence of Latinos in the marketplace, workplace and social mainstream, said HACR president and CEO Carlos Orta.

MillerCoors is a joint venture of Denver-based Molson Coors Brewing Co. and SABMiller PLC that combines the two international beer companies’ U.S. brewing operations.

Source: Denver Business Journal

I often receive phone calls from advertising colleagues who are looking to add Latino talent to their teams. The caller might own or work for a Hispanic market agency, or a multicultural agency or a general-market agency. He might be a headhunter hired to work with any of these agency types. In most cases, the request is simply about who I know that is talented, easy to work with and has all the right skill sets. However, in some cases, certain biases rear their ugly heads. I’m asked questions that have no business being asked in this day and age. At a time when jobs are hard to find, it pains me to believe that there are worthy candidates being passed over because of:

Skin Color: General-market agencies are often criticized for the lack of diversity within their ranks and, in many cases, they certainly should be. But if truth be told, there are U.S. Hispanic agencies whose staff photos simply do not reflect the diversity of the U.S. Hispanic population as a whole. Black Hispanics have historically found it difficult to find acceptance within some Hispanic circles. The same holds true for the more brown-skinned Mexican-Americans or those who self-define as chicanos. Occasionally, the white, blond, blue-eyed Hispanic will also lose out on a job opportunity because he doesn’t fulfill the agencies expectations of what a Hispanic is, particularly when general-market agencies are trying to hire window dressing to check off a diversity box or create the illusion of having a Hispanic competency in-house.

Social Status: Often U.S.-born Latinos, and particularly those of Mexican descent, are judged based upon their parents’ social status, regardless of what the candidate’s U.S. social reality is. This stems from country-of-origin practices that prioritize a more European-influenced presentation skewing toward lighter hair, lighter eyes, lighter skin and a facial bone structure that does not shout “indigenous” (or doesn’t bear “la mancha de platano” as a friend of mine used to say). I know that there are Latinos in hiring positions that will rule out candidates because they remind them of the maids and cleaning ladies that were a part of their foreign-born reality. I know there are non-Latinos that will do the same based on their U.S.-born frame of reference. While the hiring of foreign-born Latinos from Argentina, Colombia and other South American countries is often discussed in terms of the need for better language skills, there are most definitely other factors, including social status, that in some agencies make a U.S.-born Latino a less desirable hire.

Accents: Of course no one is going to hire someone who can’t make themselves understood to an English-only customer base, unless the role does not require direct client contact. However, there are any number of accented Latinos who not only can make themselves understood, but also can out-think and outperform some of their non-accented co-workers. Nonetheless, over the past six months, I have received at least two calls from general-market colleagues about creative positions they were seeking to fill. And in both cases they were hoping I knew someone who “didn’t have an accent” because they didn’t feel their clients would be comfortable. On the flip side, I’ve seen clients fall head over heels in love with accented Latino creatives, deeming them to be somehow more authentic because of their accent. Sometimes the adoration is warranted because the quality of the work is that good — accent or not. But frankly, I’ve seen really poor work get pitched by heavily accented old-school salesmen and get approved because of the illusion of authenticity and therefore the implied expertise that the accent created. Perhaps worse off than the accented creative is the accented account person, who is often not considered client-worthy regardless of intellect and ability to write, present and handle the requirements of the job.

I have always found the hiring process to be complex. Resumes get screened and, no matter how free of bias one believes themselves to be, perceptions get formed based on names, colleges, who-knows-who in common, and a myriad of other pieces of information. All that before the person ever walks in the door. Then there’s the voice on the answering machine, the grammar in the e-mail and the first impression when they do finally walk in and shake your hand. Even the handshake sends its own message of strength or weakness, confidence or insecurity.

We are none of us perfect. That said, we still owe it to ourselves and each other to work at being fair and impartial. We must leave our prejudices and personal preferences at the door.

I know that every job candidate turned down for a position could cry foul regardless of ethnic or racial background. Maybe it’s age or gender. Maybe it’s the cologne he wears. Who knows? But the fact is that for Latino job candidates trying to deal with the day-to-day realities of the advertising and marketing industries (including the multicultural and U.S. Hispanic advertising agencies), there are subtle and not so subtle forms of discrimination that often go undetected or are rarely acknowledged or discussed. If putting it out there helps one person go from unemployed to employed during these most difficult of times, this blog will have served its purpose.

Source: Rochelle Newman-Carrasco - http://adage.com/bigtent/post?article_id=137503

Like one of my good teachers once said, “would you ask the janitor to develop your marketing strategy?” Well then, why would you ask your call center representative to create and translate your Spanish collateral materials?

How many times do managers find themselves in the position of having to hire an employee—be it for a call center, sales or marketing—and didn’t know how to go about it?

Here are some tips on how to hire correctly.

If you are looking for a call center representative, you need to find a person with a customer centric attitude and bilingual skills. Ah, but this is tougher than it sounds. The customer service skills are easily detectable, but how do you test the prospect’s bilingual skills in a language you do not know? My advice is to have them take a proficiency test at a local branch of a language instruction institute or a reputable foreign organization that tests Spanish language skills.

Maybe you are looking to fill a junior marketing position and you want to make sure you hire the best asset for your company. You will have to do a little research first. If the position requires a degree and your candidate’s diploma is from a foreign country, find out if the school is a reputable one for the year of graduation. You will find that many Latin American countries have better public universities than private ones. Only the brightest students are able to pass the public university tests and graduate. Some years (the economy and politics of that country have a lot to do with this) may see the best and most prepared candidates graduate. Some years might not be as good. Another nice fact to know is that most Latin American universities do not have electives or specialization in any specific area until graduation. You must look into their post-graduate studies for special skills.

To hire a senior executive position, I would strongly advice the use of an experienced recruiter that understands your expectations. Most companies believe that bringing one or two top Hispanic gurus will achieve the goal of acquiring the Hispanic market. In reality, you need to hire an executive that will also build you a good team. You must be ready and able to support his or her resources and staffing needs.

How do you find a reputable recruiter? Once again, a little research is needed. Check credentials—talk to other hiring managers—treat it as if it were a future “hire.” Make sure the recruiter specializes in “Hispanic” and works with the type of candidates you are looking for. Do not embark in a venture with a recruiter that specializes in call center staffing to find either your Director of Hispanic Marketing or a Hispanic member for your board.

If all this seems overwhelming, you may want to hire a consulting firm that can find you the right recruiter, the perfect candidates and can also assist you in developing your Hispanic marketing strategy.