Time over time, we noticed students and working professionals from low-income and first-generation upbringing often lack a professional network to lean in for career support. This is even more salient when it comes to employee's referral when applying or looking to transition to a new job.
The Plus One Network empowers any members of Close the Gap Community to tap into the community's collective network to help one another land our dream job. All mentors, volunteers, and Close the Gap alums are able to request an employee referral.
“The reality is that where you grow up, where you go to school, and where you work can give you a 12x advantage in gaining access to opportunity. In other words, networks matter a lot. But, like opportunity, they are not distributed equally and are built over time.”
– Meg Garlinghouse, Head of Social Impact at LinkedIn
Close the Gap was started to close the network gap among historically marginalized communities. We started bridging this gap through one-on-one and one-to-many approaches like structured mentorship and workshops, respectively.
However, this only half the battle when our community is facing a widening network gap. The reality is that many companies today still prefer applicants through employee's referrals over cold applications.
Here are few companies where individuals from the Close the Gap Community have signed up to personally extend their network and provide employee's referrals at where they work. More companies to be added soon!
Interested in adding your company to this list? Or know a friend who's willing to extend their network to the Close the Gap Community? Send Tai a DM in Slack! 📩