HBCU CONNECT Recruits Black Techies for Microsoft

Last updated: Thursday 5/29/14 @ 9:49 pm

This evening I attended a recruitment event for an information technology behemoth that was organized by HBCU CONNECT, one of the first online media companies to focus on HBCUs. Within five minutes after the presentations began, I knew with the absolute certainty of the little girl in the Wizard of Oz movie that I was neither in Kansas nor was I attending a Google recruitment festival. Why? Because there were too many smart black techies in the front of the room ... :-)

OK, I was fully conscious when I entered Microsoft's offices on K Street in downtown Washington, DC, so the presence of so many black hotshots was not a complete surprise. I already knew from previous visits to its headquarters in Redmond, Washington and from attendance at its conferences and workshops that Microsoft's diversity stats were probably better than Google's. But I had no sense of how really bad Google's stats were until the Google diversity numbers were released this week ... which made me all the more appreciative of Microsoft's achievement. Can Microsoft do an even better job? Of course. But does Google have a credible excuse for its abysmal failure to recruit more black technical employees??? No, no, no.

Job Prospects
Question: What kinds of recruits was Microsoft looking for at this meeting?
Answer: Smart black people who have passionate commitment and superior technical competence.

Readers who are interested and feel qualified should reach out to Mr. Will Moss, the CEO and Founder of HBCU CONNECT, via Twitter (www.twitter.com/hbcu) or Facebook  (www.facebook.com/hbcufans) for more information about the three Microsoft teams that participated in today's presentations.

Moss informed me that this was the second recruitment event that HBCU CONNECT had organized for Microsoft. I sincerely hope that he and his colleagues organize many more recruitment sessions for Microsoft ... and for other high tech corporations ... like ... Google ... :-)