Recruiting underrepresented students

Re-examine and extend recruiting timelines

Collaborate with CAPD and other MIT Campus partners to develop your strategy and timeline. Early recruiting deadlines do not provide adequate time for students from under-represented backgrounds to prepare their application materials.

Review position description for unconscious bias

Consider using a Gender Decoder for Job Ads. Familiarize yourself with these guiding principles, terms to avoid and concepts to know when crafting inclusive internship and job descriptions.

Remove GPA requirements from your job or internship postings

High GPAs do not translate to workforce readiness. Consider skills not academic majors. This Handshake blog post reviewed the data and explains how GPA requirements disadvantages black students. If you are using GPA to filter your applicants, you are leaving behind a talented candidate pool at MIT.

Offer a fair wage

Unpaid internships  furthers opportunities for those who can afford to take them, while leaving those who can’t at a disadvantage. At MIT we seek that a student’s internship experience should be of no cost to them. CAPD encourages employers to review our guidelines for posting jobs and internships and reference CAPD’s bi-annual Summer Experience Survey when offering fair compensation.

State the salary range and whether offer is negotiable in job and internship postings

According to the AAUW’s The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap by the AAUW, college educated women with full time jobs, make on average 26% less than their male counterparts. These inequalities are even larger when we examine the gender pay gap for URM women. For example, Hispanic women make 54% of white non-Hispanic men’s wages. Help address this inequality by being transparent with salary range and relocation expenses typically offered early in the applicant review process.

Disrupt the bias in your hiring process

Bias Interrupters provides a 3-step approach and toolkit with simple steps to disrupt unconscious bias during hiring. Bias arises throughout the selection process including reviewing resumes, interviewing candidates and negotiating salary.

Hire for culture add vs. culture fit

Hiring for a culture fit can lead to affinity bias; consider these tips.

Foster opportunities for candidates to find their community

During the interview process provide opportunities for candidates to explore the city/location, share information about company resources including connections to employee resource groups (ERG’s) or mentorship programs.

Engage in opportunities to support students’ career exploration

Connect with MIT students early by hiring a micro-intern, encouraging MIT Alum to join Alumni Advisors Hub, or volunteering to speak on panels. These engagements help students develop more connections in industry.

Across MIT there are a number of departments, programs, and resources which you are encouraged to connect with in order to recruit underrepresented groups.

Post to Handshake

All students and post-docs at MIT are encouraged to search for opportunities on Handshake. Post your company’s internship programs which target URM students and other full-time opportunities on Handshake under the “jobs” category. If your organization offers virtual or in-person events including programs, conferences, recruiting events among other, post them to Handshake as an event.

Contact with CAPD Employer Relations

Connect with CAPD’s employer relations team to gain insight on how to promote your URM programs and opportunities. Email hiremit@mit.edu and include the information about the program or opportunity you hope to recruit for as well as the Handshake link for those opportunities.

Engage with student clubs and organizations

Find underrepresented minority (URM) student clubs and organizations to connect with by searching student organizations using key words or the filters within the platform.

Once you identify a club or organization, there is email contact information and typically a link to the organization’s web page(s) where you can find additional information about the organization, its members, and opportunities to connect with them. You are strongly encouraged to directly reach out to targeted URM clubs and organizations to promote your company and opportunities geared toward URM populations.

Some groups to consider connecting with:

African American/Black

Black Students Union (BSU), Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA), National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), Chocolate City, Black Women’s Alliance

LGBTQ+

Affiliated, LGBT Grad, Gender Fluidity Club, GaMIT

Military/Veterans

MIT Student Veteran Association, National Society of Pershing Rifles Charlie Company 12th Regiment

Students with Disabilities

American Sign Language and Deaf Culture Club

Latinx

Hermanas Unidas, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), Mujeres Latinas, Latinos in Science and Engineering, LUChA, La Casa

Low Income/First Generation

Quest Scholars Network, Donor to Diner, FLI@MIT and G-FLI@MIT

Women

Society of Women Engineers, GWAMIT, Undergrad Women in Physics, Women in Machine Learning, Grad Women in Aerospace Engineering / Women in Aerospace Engineering, Women Business Leaders, Women in EECS / Grad Women of Course 6, Undergrad Society for Women in Math

Office of Minority Education (OME)

MIT OME’s mission is to promote academic excellence, build strong communities, and develop professional mindsets among students of underrepresented minority groups, with the ultimate goal of developing leaders in the academy, industry, and society. Employers interested in connecting with OME are encouraged to explore sponsorship through OME’s Industrial Advisory Council for Minority Education (IACME) program which promotes and provides opportunities for employers to connect directly with MIT URM students through OME programming.