Are you a Latinx student who wants to make a commitment to your career development? It can be as easy as sitting down with your cafecito (coffee) every Wednesday from 10:00 – 10:30 AM with the Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement (HACE)! HACE streams weekly career conversations with its CEO Patricia Mota and a myriad of guests. Guests have included career consultants, non-profit leaders, tech leaders, and many other professionals across industries.
One such guest was Jackie Kennedy Harris, Human Resources Consultant at JKH Career Coaching & Consulting. In her Cafecito con HACE, Jackie talked about virtual interviewing skills such has having proper lighting, having an elevator pitch ready, and being interactive. “At the end of the day, you want to leave an impression. You want that employer to say ‘I want to call this person back!” Again and again, Jackie stressed the importance of a smile and eye-contact with your interviewer.
Another guest was Claudia Romo Edelman, founder of We Are All Human, a non-profit focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Claudia also has many years of experience working for the United Nations to promote human rights. In her Cafecito con HACE, Claudia talked about how she determined she wanted a career in human rights advocacy. She was a teenage volunteer in Mexico searching for earthquake survivors and shouted loudly to her group that she heard a voice beneath the rubble. The way the saved little girl looked at her touched Claudia deeply. She realized, “I can be loud for a living!” for both the Latinx community and the world through her career.
Another guest was Alexandra Turcios, Solutions Consultant at Adobe Sign and Co-Marketing Chair for the HACE Young Professionals Board. In her roles, Alexandra works on electronic signature technology for Adobe and building the pipeline of Latinx talent for HACE. Her journey to these positions has been one of twists and turns. “I never knew I would land in tech . . . I studied political science . . . I wanted to be an ambassador one day, or work in politics, and somehow I landed in tech!” Through networking, however, Alexandra found out that tech was a good career path for her. “I attended a career fair in April of 2019 . . . I met a recruiter at one of my past employers. We hit it off. We built a relationship. I got a referral in, and I landed in my first career in consulting in tech!”
With an exciting new guest each week, Cafecito con HACE is a valuable resource to be exposed to. Listen to professionals give their career advice, all tailored to Latinx students. What’s more, you can send in questions and have them answered on these live events. Find Cafecito Con HACE on HACE’s LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook pages.
