The One Club Steps Up Minority Recruiting

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By: Dwayne W. Waite Jr.

It is always fun to see the right people tackling a real issue. The One Club, with help from Jimmy Smith of TBWA/Chiat/Day and Goodby from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, will be putting on a one-day job fair called "Where Are All the Black People," encouraging people from multicultural backgrounds to come out to see opportunities in advertising. The group is looking for recent graduates and young professionals. The event is October 4 at the New World Stages in New York City.

The press release on MarketWatch said that the job fair idea came out of a discussion at Creative Week in NYC last May. Here we are, thinking the brainiacs during Advertising Week would handle this issue.

But let's not jump the gun. This job fair won't solve the issue. It is just awesome to see creative folks seeing the void and are beginning to address it. These multicultural professionals will still need to be hired, and then given a chance to grow and develop professionally. Any form of short term answers will not work.

David Ogilvy stated that advertising does not influence the norms of society, but it conveys it. Advertising is a mirror of the market. Isn't it odd then that the employment ranks in the advertising industry don't match? Of course, advertising has the stigma of being a boy's club (let's make it 'white' boy's club), and for some time that stigma fit, and fit quite well. To advertising's and its leaders' credit, a lot in advertising has changed. But to rely on a non-profit club to not only bring attention to it (like every professional organization's conference) but also do something about it, is troubling. If the business folks in advertising were true economists at heart, they would see that when things stagnate when certain resources are abundant, searching for alternative or scarce resources can improve one's competitive advantage. Apparently that lesson is easier said than done.

Kudos to The One Club, Goodby, and Jimmy Smith for tackling this issue. We hope others follow.

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About the Author

Dwayne W. Waite Jr. is partner and principal at JDW: The Charlotte Agency, a marketing and advertising shop in Charlotte, NC. He enjoys consumer behavior, economics, and football.

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