Networking Event Paper/Midterm
I attended the event called āHere Are All the Black Peopleā hosted by the One club. HAATBP is a multicultural career fair where different design/ad agencies come together to find and recruit multicultural talent. It is a response to the lack of diversity in the industry. I decided to bring my brother along because heās also studying design. The energy at Here All the Black people was really enigmatic and fun. I decided to come to this event as a person with an ethnic background and am part of a group that is considered a minority; diversity in my field concerns me. Thereās need to be more diversity in the design and advertising field and I think events HAATBP are an example of these events benefit people.
When I entered the space, several people greeted me. I signed in and I was given a small booklet, which showed and explained some of the events. I was given a silicon bracelet, which was color coded according to the event that I signed up. There were tables with signs on them that had the names of several companies. Several companies were there like Droga5, R/G A, Blue State Digital, BBDO, McCann, Google, 4Aās and several other ones. At the venue, they had stations for anybody that wanted to take their headshots for their profiles and any social media. There were podiums where the speakers stood with banners and logos displayed behind them. Throughout the entire place you could see the designs and identity of this event. I found that they took the time to give this event a unified look and feel really cool. It made me think that this event is very highly regarded.
At the Here Are the Black People event, there was two sessions of portfolio reviews. There were several panel sessions, a couple for students starting out, some for mid-level designers, and others for companies and firms to give them insights on how to open the door for more diversity. I participated in one of the sessions of the portfolio reviews. Two people from SVA reviewed my portfolio. I received a lot of advice on how to work on my portfolio. I felt that the advice was really insightful and helpful. I got the business cards of the two people that reviewed my portfolio. I also stayed for the mentor session on āDiversity is your Unique Selling Pointā. I also got to talk to a couple of the recruiters. I was able to talk to the representatives of Droga5 and couple of people from the MAIP program. MAIP is a multicultural internship program that connects students with advertising firms throughout New York City. Their representatives gave me a lot of information about the program. They let me know when the dead line was coming up and they were all sharing stories form their internships at various big ad/designs firms.
When I talked to Droga5 representatives, I was actually about to head out because I had to go back to class. However, one of the representatives, named Tulani, a strategist for Droga5, stopped me when she saw me with my brother and she noticed that we were twins. She was a fun person. She demanded to see my portfolio and seemed to really like my projects. She made her other colleagues stop everything they were doing to look at my portfolio. I mentioned to them that I run the Art and Design Club at City Tech and they recommended me to reach out to their head of outreach and publicity to possibly bring people to come speak at a Meet the Pros. Right before I left, they all gave me their business cards and contact info. As of right now, Iām waiting on their response for a MTP and I had sent my resume to Tulani and hopefully I hear back.
I really enjoyed going to the Here Are the Black People and I plan to keep attending. I love the fact that the One Club has this event to open the doors to many ad/design firms to multicultural students. I enjoyed the energy of the event and how much design work went into it. I definitely will go to the next one next year.
