Latinos in the Office Can Work It to Their Advantage

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I don’t like career self-help books. I have my reasons. For one, the so-called advice is often outrageously, even condescendingly, obvious: “Build yourself a network!” “Research your prospective employer online!” “Don’t forget to flush!”

For another, the books’ purpose for existence seems more often than not to be furthering the careers of their HR-consultant/career-adviser authors. I’d ask these folks to leave the bookstore shelf-space for those of us who don’t know how to do anything else.

Given my beat, I receive about two of these books a day. They must have an audience, judging by the relentless onslaught of titles in this category. Indeed, when I put the galleys out on the give-away table where I work, I notice they disappear rather quickly. Everyone I work with is smarter than I am, so this leads me to wonder if common career sense isn’t so common.

One recent title caught my eye. “The Latino Advantage in the Workplace,” published in December 2006 by Sphinx Publishing, posed an interesting challenge in its subtitle: “Use Who You Are to Get Where You Want to Be.” What did authors Mariela Dabbah and Arturo Poiré mean by that? And did Latinos really have an advantage in the work world?

Before I called the authors to get some answers, I tried to think of recent news stories involving Hispanics in the workforce. My Google News search results were annoyingly dominated by the immigration debate (gracias a whole lot, Lou Dobbs). There were the reports a few days ago about workers of Hispanic descent suffering more workplace injuries, mostly by dint of holding the more dangerous jobs, scaling scaffolding in highrise construction and such. There was the news of workplace raids in Texas by immigration agents searching for undocumented workers. There’s an interesting and sobering article in Hispanic Business magazine about the labor gap for Hispanics, for whom unemployment is about a percentage point higher than of the population as a whole:

…the U.S. workplace has a long way to go before it attains representation equal to population. The top companies’ reports on the Hispanic percentage of their total work force ranged from 3.2% to 31%. The firms with the highest percentages were in the service industry, and the firms with the lowest percentages were in technical fields. …As for Hispanic representation in management positions, only 5% of the listed companies reported a percentage that exceeds (and only slightly) the national Hispanic population proportion of approximately 14%.

The Latino advantage in the workplace wasn’t looking so great.

I was cheered by CareerBuilder’s forecasts for hiring trends in 2007. One in 10 employers said they’ll be targeting Hispanic job candidates most aggressively of all, and half of employers recruiting bilingual employees say English/Spanish-speaking candidates are most in demand in their organizations.

And Inroads, a national minority internship program, just announced its partnership with the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting to “create a talented, experienced employer base for America’s leading companies.”

“Latino Advantage” is indeed a career self-help book in the classic mold, with worksheets and bulleted advice and sidebars of anecdotes (“Marisol is very friendly and proud of her Latino roots…”). The cover features Dabbah and Poiré posing back to back, looking every bit as friendly and competent as you’d expect two successful career experts (both, coincidentally, from Buenos Aires) to look. Interestingly, the book begins with a dissection of “what it means to be a Latino”–no easy answer here–and then with a section on the value system unique to the community.

Work in Progress: Your title and subtitle seem to be acknowledging stereotypes in the workplace and urging readers to take advantage of them.
Arturo Poiré: Yes. I think the approach was the opposite of what you normally see in books trying to help minorites–which is that your diversity is an obstacle, we can help you overcome it. We’re saying, recognize the things you have–the things that are good that differentiate yourself.

WIP: I assumed the advantages you referred to would begin, first and foremost, with bilingualism and biculturalism. Yet you begin the book by talking about the values you attribute to Latinos–loyalty, honesty, respect for authority.
AP: When you’re a minority, you’re more identified by what’s different than what’s the same. We thought Latinos share a lot of values with non-Latinos. So we wanted to show we’re actually one and the same. Values are very, very important for Latinos in general. Most are brought up in homes with these values. It carries into the workplace.
Mariela Dabbah: We wanted to point out that these values might not be first to jump to people’s minds. Take goal setting. Even Latinos might not think that’s a cultural thing. But somebody at some point in your family’s history set the goal of coming to America.

WIP: How do Latinos let employers know about these characteristics?
AP: Normally in interviews they teach you to have canned answers so people don’t think you are different. We say you can give examples of your own experience growing up in a bicultural family. Show how that adds advantage to you in the workplace: you’re used to two different cultures at home, that makes you adaptive–a good translator of ideas in the workplace.
MD: It’s a known fact that Latinos are very adaptable and flexible. Many of us, or our parents, were raised in countries that were unstable and you never knew what’s going to happen. You adapt constantly and come up with a Plan B, C and D. When you’re here, you can use that to your advantage as a person who adapts easily to change. But you have to be careful, because Latinos are also known for being too adaptable; they try on so many roles that they can’t settle on a strong long-term plan.

WIP: You’re talking about a hugely diverse population of more than 40 million. Can you really generalize about their values and behaviors?
AP: I think you can. Adaptability, flexibility, you see these consistently. Some things really are cultural. If you look at attitudes to debt, that is a really cultural thing too.

WIP: What are your thoughts about corporate affirmative action? Should Latinos take advantage of diversity programs meant to increase minority hiring and advancement at companies?
MD: You need to use all available means to getting ahead and getting the job you want. Find who the diversity officer of a company is, meet them, send them your resumé. Remember they have an interest in presenting a diverse array of candidates. Many companies have Latino networks now. Use these networks to meet people. Obviously we want people to advance on their own merits, but you need to use cultural background as one more asset.