Recruiting Efforts Seek To Expose BGLTQ Students to Business

What began last year as a mentorship program between undergraduates and students at Harvard Business School has evolved into the Harvard Undergraduate BGLTQ Business Society, an organization specifically devoted to exposing BGLTQ students on campus to job opportunities in the business sector.

As hundreds of undergraduates participate each year in Harvard’s On-Campus Interview Program, HUBBS is one effort working to increase BGLTQ participation in such recruiting programs. And it is part of a growing trend: Increased efforts to expose BGLTQ-identified students at Harvard to business and corporate careers this year from student organizations and the Office of Career Services have been embraced by students and companies alike, although some BGLTQ undergraduates add that they face challenges acclimating to work in the business sector.

EXPANDING OPPORTUNITIES

Students nationwide and at Harvard have made recent efforts to increase business recruiting and career opportunities for BGLTQ undergraduates. Several years ago, in 2004, a business conference was founded called Out for Undergrad, which aimed to increase BGLTQ students’ representation in the business sector. This year, Out for Undergrad will expand to offer conferences to undergraduates in four sectors—business, technology, engineering, and marketing.

According to Brandon Fail ’03, Out for Undergrad’s executive director, the conference today tries to help “[get] the message out” that companies are interested in recruiting BGLTQ undergraduates “in time to affect their recruiting decisions and career choices.”

“It’s so valuable to connect students with real, live professionals inside key industries early on,” he wrote in an email.

W. Powell Eddins ’16 is the founder and co-president of the Harvard Undergraduate BGLTQ Business Society, an organization that works to increase recruiting and career opportunities for BGLTQ students in business. By Christopher J Magnani

At Harvard, some groups seek to mitigate what members describe as some students’ impression that business is not welcoming to BGLTQ people by expanding student exposure to business careers, including finance, consulting, and technology.

Born out of the idea of obtaining corporate sponsorship for student activities, the student-run HUBBS, which grew out of a committee in the Queer Students and Allies, split off to begin programming and mentorship programs centered on giving undergraduate students the tools to enter business careers. Organizers approached the Office of Career Services when forming the group.

According to HUBBS founder and co-president W. Powell Eddins ’16, the group has grown “exponentially,” with about 70 students now involved in the organization. Eddins characterized HUBBS’ efforts as highly successful; the organization raised more than $5,000 in its first year, according to Eddins.

HUBBS currently has sponsors ranging from technology companies to consulting firms, including Facebook, Goldman Sachs, and Microsoft, among others. The Office of Career Services, meanwhile, has partnered with the group to host events.

According to Dylan MarcAurele ’16, co-president of HUBBS and treasurer of the Queer Students and Allies, the events HUBBS organizes with business partners help expose students to what job opportunities exist.

“I know so many people in [HUBBS] that have become so much more confident with their identities and the processes of interviewing and getting internships and networking,” he said.

IN THE WORKPLACE

Students involved in organizing BGLTQ recruiting resources say businesses have been receptive to their efforts. Fail, for his part, wrote that a “hot topic among recruiters and professionals alike these days is how companies can do a better job of attracting and retaining members” of diverse groups including “female students, trans students, and LGBT students of color.”

At Harvard specifically, Timothy P. McCarthy, the faculty advisor to both HUBBS and QSA, said businesses more recently have been not just tolerant, but embracing of BGLTQ employees.

“Among my graduate students there has been particularly targeted recruitment because these companies understand that these students are important to their institutions,” McCarthy said.

Eddins added that HUBBS has also been received well by corporations.

“These companies really care about us and they really care about representing us, and also because they’re serving more and more diverse clients,” Eddins said.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the investment banking arm, is one of HUBBS’ sponsors. A spokesperson for the bank, Ferris Morrison, wrote in an email that its campus recruiting efforts are a “vital pipeline of talent for Bank of America Merrill Lynch.”

“Because diversity is such an important part of our culture, we partner with a variety of organizations like the Harvard Undergraduate BGLTQ Business Society as a way to support and encourage diverse candidates who might be considering careers in our exciting industry,” Morrison added.

Marissa L. Long, the assistant director of the On-Campus Interview Program and employer relations at the Office of Career Services, said that companies that recruit at Harvard often reach out to affinity groups on campus in an effort to attract a “diverse group of applicants.” However, she added that there is still some work to do, such as with international organizations.

Some students say they face difficulties being open about their identities when they arrive at an internship or workplace. Albert A. Murzakhanov ’16, a former HUBBS co-president who interned last summer at T.D. Bank, said that while the process of applying to and interviewing for jobs in the business sector, particularly in larger firms, has not been an issue, it can be “very hard” to come out to colleagues once assuming a new position.

“As a summer intern, I felt it was very hard to be out,” Murzakhanov said, adding that many large firms are building internal support networks. Carl E. Rogers ’16, who worked for Ogilvy & Mather, an advertising and public relations firm, in Beijing last year, similarly said he was a “bit careful” about to whom he came out in China.

Fail acknowledged that even the most BGLTQ-friendly companies still have a “good deal” of work to do in making undergraduate students aware that they are welcome in the industry in time to affect their recruiting and career choices. He suggested that BGLTQ students “leverage their common identity to seek out, meet, and learn from older, more experienced LGBT people in the industries they’re most interested in.”

“Things have gotten better, but being L, G, B, or T still means being different. And to succeed in today’s hypercompetitive world, LGBT students need to know how to make the most of that difference,” Fail wrote.

—Staff writer Kristina D. Lorch can be reached at kristina.lorch@thecrimson.com.