Grad Creates Job Site for Minorities

Brandon M. Terry ’05 wants to fill the gaps he sees in minority professional networks—and he has gone online to do it.

Terry recently co-founded GetConnects, a company that works to link minority students at top universities with businesses that do not have strong minority recruitment programs or an already strong presence at on-campus job fairs.

According to Terry, registration with the GetConnects’ online database is free for students, but businesses are asked to pay for access.

Terry said his company will help to fill in holes in minority professional networks.

“The vast majority of people in the U.S. get their jobs through a preexisting network,” Terry said. “One of the problems is that the U.S. is a deeply segregated society and that minority groups have some of the most shallow social networks of people in the U.S.”

“We saw that minority networks didn’t overlap with the recruiting networks,” said Sean M. Mendy, co-founder of GetConnects and a 2005 Cornell graduate. “I saw friends of mine that had business degrees who were working really menial jobs and thought it was a waste of talent.”

William Wright-Swadel, director of Harvard’s Office of Career Services, said he thought that GetConnects could help students develop all-important networks, but that minority students should feel comfortable utilizing all kinds of professional connections, minority or otherwise.

“What I don’t want is students thinking that ‘I’m an African-American female and the only people at Harvard who are willing to help me are other African-American female alumni,’” Wright-Swadel said, emphasizing that Harvard’s professional network and resources are open to all students.

GetConnects currently has 700 students in its database and is negotiating contracts with its first businesses. Terry declined to name the businesses so as not to jeopardize their contracts, but listed the Coca-Cola company as an example of a business in which students might be interested.

Julia K. Mario ’07 said she signed up for GetConnects because, after participating in a minority job fair and several minority recruitment dinners, she was “dissatisfied with the on-campus recruiting at Harvard.”

“It seemed as though investment banking and consulting were the bulk of what was available,” Mario said. “I thought that GetConnects was a great opportunity to look at other jobs.”

At the moment, the founders are relying on word of mouth and advertising on Facebook.com to attract users. They plan to make on-campus visits in the fall semester. GetConnects draws its students from the Ivy League as well as colleges like MIT, Stanford, Howard, and Spelman.

Terry said that GetConnects provides access to minority students that many businesses could not get on their own.

“When you lack that visibility, that network, it becomes very difficult to just show up at a career fair with some fliers and convince people that you’re the place to be,” he said.