Chelsea welcomes NYC’s first LGBT job fair

TOP PHOTO: Google’s booth at the recent LGBT job fair stayed consistently busy last Wednesday. BOTTOM PHOTO: New York City’s first-ever LGBT job fair drew about 1,000 LGBT career-changers and recent-grads to Chelsea’s Metropolitian Pavillion last week.

By Stephanie Cain

“Where else can you get quality candidates with a great fashion sense?”

That’s how a recruiter jokingly described the first-ever gay and lesbian career fair in New York, held in Chelsea last Wednesday.

“I didn’t know what to expect, but the diversity in skills is just amazing,” said the recruiter, Tim Lefebvre, who talked to more than 150 people in the first three hours at the Aetna booth. “Cultural diversity goes without saying.”

The brainchild of the Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, Out to Work job fair hosted 36 gay-friendly companies in an all-day exhibition at the Metropolitan Pavillion, joining the small group of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) fairs that have begun taking place across the nation.

The event drew about 1,000 career-changers and recent-grads from New York City’s LGBT community, who found that the nervous process of applying for jobs is much easier when companies welcome, rather than discriminate against, their sexual orientation.

“I feel like just by they’re being here and my being here, it’s something unspoken, but everyone is relaxed,” Ivan Stillerman, 50, said. “I don’t walk around with anxiety and that’s nice. It’s welcoming.”

Stillerman, a short man with glasses dressed in a polo shirt, came to ask about administrative assistant positions. He said that the fair’s LGBT focus proved that the companies were looking to hire solely on merit and that anything else was “subsidiary.”

Brandon Purves, 27, checked out the fair for jobs with non-profits. He said that Out to Work offered a more focused market for LGBT employees.

“At larger fairs, like the ones put on by religious or social organizations, you really have to do your research on the companies beforehand,” Purves said. “With this, you know they’re all gay-friendly.”

The Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce saw the need for networking among gay-friendly businesses and LGBT employees in New York, something that hadn’t been done before, after hearing about an LGBT career fair in San Francisco that began in February 2004. The Chamber formed a small, but dedicated committee to reach out to its core LGBT constituency in the West Village and Chelsea, while casting a wider net and attracting businesses throughout the city.

Sean Oakley, project manager at the Chamber, said that his organization is the “perfect liaison to present this type of event,” and with just eight months of planning and preparation, Out to Work premiered.

“I was so touched earlier, almost to tears,” Oakley said. “It’s the first to take place in the northeast region, and it turned even out better than I’d hoped.”

Out to Work first signed Google as a sponsor, which led to the involvement of other major companies including accounting firm KPMG, Sovereign Bank, New York Police Department, New York University and MetLife. Local gay networking non-profit Out Professionals helped spread the word, which is how many recruiters on Wednesday said they found out about the fair.

“I saw the flyer in a bar,” said Adam Kilpatrick, vice president of marketing at Club H Fitness. “It’s a demographic that’s definitely fitness-oriented. We sought it out and said, ‘We want to be here.’”

Many of the companies that participated in the fair had gay and transgender recruiters at their stations. Justyn Makarewycz, an account manager at the marketing and advertising firm Paladin said that he wanted to be involved because he is part of the LGBT community.

Alina Wilczynski, a four-year boardmember of Out Professions, said the fair was an “absolutely tremendous” support system for gay individuals—that she wished this had been available to her when she was starting out.

“When I was began my business, I was not comfortable being out myself,” said Wilczynski, who started OP.Lynx, a women’s branch of Out Professionals. “I remember thinking there needed to be a network in the community for me.”

But companies that showed up on Wednesday were not only trying to add to their workforces in the name of diversity but also hoping to hire LGBT employees who can help them market more effectively to that segment of the population.

Many larger companies, like Aetna and KPMG, have internal action committees to do just that. MetLife just began a national committee just three weeks ago. Its recruiter at Out to Work, Steven A. Ludsin, said that his group is identifying the unique needs of LGBT individuals and assessing how his company can provide “value and quality” in services to them.

The Chamber understood companies’ dual approach going into the event, and chose recruiters from at least 30 companies based on criteria used by San Francisco’s LGBT Community Center, the first organization in the nation to host a gay job fair: that employers focus on a comfortable work environment that promotes diversity and offers domestic partner benefits. The San Francisco organizers collaborated with Out to Work coordinators by giving them advice, background information and support.

“It was just wonderful to hear they were doing this,” said Ken Stram, director of economic development at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center. “We’re so thrilled.”

Stram, who did not attend the New York City event, said that when his non-profit holds a career fair, usually three times a year, people line up outside before the doors open to get first crack. The job fairs have helped more than 3,000 LGBT individuals find employment since its inception three years ago. Further, the original job fair spawned an employment event for solely transgender persons, giving these men and women a safe environment to interview with company representatives.

“The idea is gaining momentum,” Stram said. “They’re spreading. It’s going to be great for the nation.”