Crowds Line Up Around the Corner for Diversity-Focused Startup Job Fair

BERKELEY, Calif. - Jan. 31, 2016 - PRLog -- Over 1,000 people turned up on Thursday night for the Berkeley Startup Job Fair at NextSpace Berkeley. The line wrapped around the corner and stretched two city blocks long. Everyone waiting had one thing on their mind: the hope of landing a job at the next big startup.

The event, which was a collaboration between Localwise (https://www.localwisejobs.com) and the City of Berkeley’s Office Economic Development, was focused on promoting diversity at startups.

The current state of diversity in tech is alarming. At large tech companies, only 29% of the employees are women and only 15% are black or hispanic. At startups, only 8.3% of venture funding goes to women-led tech startups. The numbers fall to 1% for African-American led startups.

While many forums address the problem through discussion, the job fair hits the heart of the issue—jobs. Localwise partnered with organizations such as #YesWeCode, Black Girls Code, Lesbians Who Tech, Code2040 and many more to engage a diverse crowd of job seekers.

Thirty startups were on site accepting resumes. They ranged from high growth, venture-backed startups, such as LeadGenius, Massdrop, and Captricty, to earlier stage companies such as Vyrill and Dray Technologies.

In addition to the thirty startups, the job fair featured additional services designed to assist job seekers. Local career coaches provided free resume review and photographers from upstart Passion Projects Productions provided free professional headshots. There were also representatives from Code Berkeley, the first state-funded technology bootcamp in California, and Telegraph Academy, a coding bootcamp for people of color.

The Berkeley Startup Job Fair is one of many important steps to address this problem. Localwise will continue to build on the momentum of this event through its website, which connects Bay Area residents to jobs at local businesses, startups and nonprofits.