The Insightful Recruiter. How MEChA is Viewed.

Quite often I come into contact w/ recruiters looking to fill business, marketing, public relations and sales posts within their organizations. Those that are just getting the hang of the U.S. Latino market will “shotgun advertise” in a variety of channels, to include, newspaper, TV, radio, and social media outlets, often with some great success. The seasoned recruiters however will point to MEChA as an pool of high caliber, self-driven, and results-oriented individuals who understand the U.S. Latino market more than any other student talent pool (disclaimer: over the last 10-yrs more similar organizations have launched). Why is that?

How MEChA is Viewed: The Not So Great, and the Great.
On the one end, MEChA is grossly misunderstood and misrepresented by individuals of specific political stripes who point to the organizations 1960s founding documents as proof of their arguments. To be clear, MEChA exists solely within the confines of the U.S. educational establishment (middle, high school, and college) focused on closing the educational achievement rate (or drop out rate) while increasing college enrollment rates and improving the communities where they reside. Some schools call it MEChA, others something similar, but in the end, these student leaders learn a variety of hands-on learning skill sets that help them in the future to include, leadership, team building, community-building, marketing, finance, and diplomacy. Critics argue that the organization is evil; the students and their advisors argue that they are building pride in themselves and getting an education and building the communities around them. Mind you, in many parts of the world, learning/reasoning for yourself is prohibited and in some places outlawed.

Leadership: students from early on are encouraged to take on leadership posts within the chapter, usually President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary and Sergeant-at-Arms (not often in that order). Today, some chapters will narrow it to also include, website master, public relations, Vice President of Political Action, Social, etc. The students develop their agenda, advertise and run their meetings. They plan and organize events to highlight the chapters campus-community activities. The chapters leadership position often is a springboard to run for class representative, and student body leadership.

Team Building: students gain hands-on experience by collaborating w/ other students on a variety of projects and initiatives. They learn to work in small teams (committees), take on tasks (volunteer work assignments) and together accomplish great things for themselves, their school and their communities.

Community-Building: students understand that school is a privilege and college an honor. For many of the MEChistAs (MEChA students), their parents did not study above grade level, and because the U.S. Latino community faces extreme obstacles and challenges socio-economic, as well as political and legal, the students focus specifically in areas that they are most comfortable in addressing. For instance, a chapter that resides in rural America could focus on migrant & seasonal needs; a chapter on the U.S.-Mexico border could focus on border issues, i.e. Cuidad Juarez murders, etc. A chapter in the heart of gang violence could focus on gang outreach & prevention. Community-building is understanding your demographic and meeting their needs.

Marketing: students learn early on the art of grassroots marketing, whether its promoting a dance to raise monies for scholarships or to attend nationals to printing and distribution. Today, marketing has slightly improved through the use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube to promote events. These students have an intricate understanding of the language to be used to draw their crowd out and attend their functions.

Finance: the hyper-democratic organization prides itself on full and equal representation. In regards to finance, the budgets are discussed and voted on. Committees are alloted funds to execute their initiatives and because an advisor signs off on the Treasurers report, finance skills are gained and utilized. This is a good thing.

And, finally Diplomacy: the chapters, while autonomous to their communities, are accountable to their region, their state and the national organization. Students come to learn quickly the art of diplomacy and language etiquette through the use and enforcement of Robert’s Rules of Order. This is the same language that is used at most every major political decision-making roundtable and its used in MEChA.

Seasoned recruiters understand intuitively what we already know and have known. MEChA students don’t need to be “trained and brought up to speed” because in most cases they’ll hit the ground running. In most cases, MEChA students instinctively know their communities inside-out. They know how to mobilize communities; market to; engage and have a pulse. As one recruiter put it, “it’s what sets them apart.”

David Molina is the Founder and CEO of BilingualHire, a Portland, OR-based consumer internet startup focused on advancing the careers of bilingual [Spanish+ English] talent. Molina can be reached via email or you can connect over on Twitter or Facebook.