Blog Post: Hispanic Recruiting: "Hello" instead of "Hola".

Corporate recruiters are focusing their efforts on attracting Hispanic Americans to their recruiting portfolios.  In their efforts to recruit Hispanics as Emerging Markets Directors, Community Liaisons, Hispanic Market Public Relations Officers, many of these talent hunters are discovering for the first time that they must pay heed to the reality that hiring Hispanics to represent a corporation’s products and services requires more than just hiring someone that looks Hispanic or is a non-native American that speaks Spanish.

When 75% of the 750 billion purchasing power of the community is wielded by mostly the 75% of U.S. Hispanics who were either born or raised as Americans, recruiters have to rethink their recruiting strategies.  Recruiting Hispanics that truly wield the bulk of the community’s purchasing power should be the recruiter's Holy Grail.   Do you know that as an Americanized Hispanic, I rarely frequent the traditional Spanish-language media for my news and entertainment?  Could this be why I rarely get exposed to "Hispanic" ads?   Well, there are millions upon millions of Hispanics just like me who have never received an Hispanic market direct mailing piece in English.  We are the influential majority of the Hispanic market and we rarely visit the local Spanish-language television stations, print mediums or internet sites.  Guess what? We are out here shopping and wielding 75% of the growing Hispanic American purchasing power. An untapped talent pool voting at the point of sale booth. Everyday!

If your recruiting campaign is the equivalent of going to Mexico to hire U.S. Hispanic knowledgeable talent, think again.  Imagine recruiters going to Australia to hire English speakers for the U.S. I don't think so. True representatives of U.S. Hispanics are Americanized citizens just like you with a very well defined understanding of a blended American way of life that is flavored with a Latin twist.  We are graduating from U.S. colleges, serving the U.S. in the Armed Forces, increasingly found sitting next to you in the board rooms and listening to Chris Matthews on MSNBC and dialing into National Public Radio.  If you want our dollars or want to tap into our talent pool for your career opportunities, look for us mainly in English-speaking media venues where we are speaking and listening in English and living Latin.  So, if you want to go fishing, go where the fishes are and U.S. Hispanics are swimming right next to you.  All you need to do is reach out to us and, remember, it frequently works better if you say "hello" instead of "hola".    

For more information on the realities of the U.S. Hispanic community, visit us at www.HispanicTimesUSA.com.  If you are looking for a public speaker or trainer that specializes on the Hispanic marketplace, feel free to contact me at jmorales@hac-usa.com or call direct at 480-232-8572.