Transcriber: Shaimaa Yahia Reviewer: Ivana Korom
Imagine yourself standing in the middle of a busy intersection
of a city like Chicago.
Nnow, this intersection is unique for two different reasons.
The first is that, every street that connects to it has a different name,
and a different group of people that live there.
For example, the street behind us
used to be called Corporate America Avenue,
but because I spent so much time in the tech industry,
I recently renamed it Big Tech Avenue.
Who lives there?
Tech companies, SaaS, software, IT organizations,
they live on Big Tech Avenue.
Now directly south of Big Tech Avenue,
the name of that street is called Diversity Drive.
And on Diversity Drive lives every conversation around diversity,
equity and inclusion,
Black, Indigenous, people of color and their communities,
they live on Diversity Drive.
Interestingly enough, that’s also where I’m from.
Now, to the royalists of the west of us, the name of that street,
it’s called Philanthropy Parkway.
And onPhilanthropy Parkway live all the non-profit organizations,
workforce development programs,
and really charitable organizations
that are intent on helping people like me get jobs.
And opposite of Philanthropy Parkway to the east of us,
well, that street’s called Business Development Boulevard.
And on Business Development Boulevard live the entrepreneurs,
those that like to make money and generate revenue,
the salespeople, those that know how to sell themselves and sell others.
The second thing that makes this intersection unique
is that we’re not just standing in it,
no, far from it.
What’s happening here is a high-stakes game of Twister,
the game where you have to have your hands, feet, arms, and head
in more than one place at a time.
So imagine right foot diversity, left foot technology,
right hand philanthropy, left hand business development.
Sounds easy?
Not at all.
But that’s where I’m standing.
You see, every day I’m helping people from diverse communities,
Black, Indigenous people,
training them on business development,
how to sell themselves and how to make money
so that they can put food on the table for their families
so that they can get into an industry
that has been far from welcoming: the tech industry.
I lead a nonprofit organization called Reworked Training,
that’s helped hundreds of individuals
go from making an average-base salary of 8,000 dollars annually
to over 55,000 dollars annually in the tech sales industry.
Not only that, but I’ve helped plenty of tech companies
have a real impact around diversity, equity and inclusion
by not just hiring people that look like me,
but donating their time and talent to training individuals
on how to sell themselves and make money.
We have this fun statistic that we like to throw around at Rework
that if you combine all of the salaries of the individuals
that we’ve helped over the last few years,
the total equals nine million dollars.
That’s nine million dollars going directly back
into what some people like to label as underserved
or underprivileged communities.
But I’ll tell you that being from one of those communities,
we don’t consider ourselves as under anything.
More like overlooked and untapped.
I’ll tell you something else, being here in this intersection in my life experience
has drawn me to the conclusion that when you make
technology companies as diverse as communities
and you introduce business development to philanthropy
that you can empower people to close their own wage gap.
I know because I’m one of those people.
See, I grew up on the south side of Chicago in a low-income neighborhood,
called The Roseland Neighborhood,
where the per capita income is 17,000 dollars annually for a family of four.
Not only that, but I’m a high school dropout raised by a single-parent mother.
I’m what some organizations would also like to label an at-risk youth.
But despite being given those labels,
I always had aspirations of going into corporate America.
In fact,
north of where I live,
I can see one of the largest buildings in Chicago
that represents the Chicago skyline, the Willis Tower.
And for me, it represented corporate America,
a place where I always wanted to go.
But as you can imagine, a low income neighborhood means low-income resources.
No one there to teach me how to interview,
no one there to help me with my resume.
No connections to recruiters or hiring managers.
How was I going to make it into corporate America?
There are a couple of different routes,
I could take Business Development Boulevard,
I could take Philanthropy Parkway,
or I can go straight into corporate America.
But each of those routes presents their own problems.
So, for example, going to Philanthropy Parkway,
most nonprofits and workforce development,
they focused on helping underserved and underprivileged individuals.
But again, I didn’t consider myself as under anything.
What often happens is because most nonprofits take a charitable approach,
it often feels like I have to accept anything that they give me,
like I’m a charity case.
And no one wants to feel like that.
Not only that, because they focus so much on making others feel good,
statistically, what happens is
that individuals walk away overly certified, but underemployed.
Now, obviously a Philanthropy Parkway on Business Development Boulevard,
there are plenty of diverse staffing agencies and paid boot camps.
And while they’re well-meaning,
oftentimes they will leave an individual like myself in debt
upwards of 10,000 dollars in order to help me
to attempt to get me a job in the technology industry.
I will be starting in debt before day one of work.
That didn’t work for me either.
And so, I decided to,go straight into corporate America,
straight to Corporate America Avenue,
But that also presented its own challenges.
You know, despite my neighbourhood
being only a 20-minute drive away from downtown Chicago,
it felt like often taking an international flight to get to Corporate America.
What do I mean by that?
Anybody who’s ever been to the airport no doubt has seen the signs in the airport
that say “You can’t bring any food, beverages, plants, animals
or anything where you’re from to where you’re going.”
And it’s as if corporate America told me,
you can’t bring your mannerisms, your culture, how you talk, your friends,
anything about you from where you're from
into where you’re coming to Corporate America.
And so instead of diversity and inclusion,
it felt like diversity and exclusion.
So I said that most people spend 2,000 hours a year
at work as full-time employees.
Imagine how it feels to be excluded for 2,000 hours a year.
Imagine what it feels like to try to fit in for 2,000 hours a year.
I had attempted it but it led me to a very painful point of differentiation
but also to the point where I’m standing here in this intersection.
Despite doing my role a little bit differently in tech sales,
I mastered my position as a tech salesperson.
What that means is that on top of my base salary of 32,500 a year.
I also brought in commissions checks.
And those started to exceed upwards of 10,000 dollars on a monthly basis.
Ten thousand dollars a month
is more than some people in my community make in an entire year.
But it also brought me two types of attention.
You see the company, they started to include me on things.
They said, “This guy knows how to make money, we have to ask him,
‘How are you doing this? How are you speaking to customers?’”
I was now included on everything.
So I got a second type of attention from my friends and family.
You see, I started dressing better, driving better and travelling differently.
And they would reach out to me and say, “Shelton, what are you doing?
Are you selling drugs?”
And I would say, ”No, I’m selling software.”
And they would often ask, “Help me out,
help me get a job in the tech industry like you.”
Anybody who’s ever referred a friend
will often say that it carries the same weight of co-signing on a car,
Your credit is at stake when you refer a friend to a job.
But despite the fact, I help these friends in high esteem,
these are people that I admire that work harder than me,
that were smarter than me.
And I refer them to get jobs.
But unfortunately, every last one of them
got declined.
They got the email, that said,
“Unfortunately, we don’t think that you are a good fit.”
And all that I can think of
is that, like an international flight,
you don’t bring any food, beverages, plants, your culture, mannerism
from where you’re from, to where you’re going.
What’s more, that feeling of inclusion that I once had started to make me sick.
It start to feel like they were treating me as if I was a special person of color,
as if I was different.
But the reality is that I wasn’t the special person.
I was the person that was given an opportunity.
See, the technology industry by means of business development
gave me the opportunity to close my own wage gap.
And there are plenty of individuals like me, untapped and overlooked
who, if given the same opportunity,
they can close their own wage gap.
And so what would that take?
Well, it would take more people in the middle of this intersection
involved in this high-stakes game of Twister,
where diversity, business development, philanthropy and technology meet.
You see, here in this intersection is where the real work starts and ends.
Are you ready for that?
Well if you are, like we say at Rework,
let’s get this work.