Winthrop’s chapter of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, presented Diversity and Inclusion at NASCAR, a cultural event during common time on Nov. 5, in collaboration with the NAACP. Abri Tate, the recruiting coordinator for NASCAR, was present as the guest speaker of the event and shared much information about how he handles diversity and inclusion within his department, and even shared tips and advice on how students can enter their careers and be valuable candidates with just their resume.
Tate graduated from Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island and began his career as an intern at PepsiCo. At the event, after sharing a brief timeline of events in his life, Tate talked about his experience in NASCAR as the recruitment coordinator.
“The first way that we make NASCAR more diverse is through our selection process,” Tate said. “We make sure we have 50% diversity in every candidate pool and during the process we make sure that we stick to a fair process that gives everyone a fair shot at selection. We also try to avoid different biases that may come into play during the screening process.”
As explained in his presentation, Tate talked about how different stereotypes may affect how individuals perceive a candidate, however, he later explained how his team avoids those biases.
“You coach against them. You become aware of them and avoid biases that may have come up in the past,” Tate said.
Aside from talking about diversity and inclusion, Tate also encouraged the students in attendance to read and learn more about the program opportunities that the organization offers, one of those programs being the NASCAR Diversity Internship Program (NDIP).
“Established in 2000, NDIP is a 10-week paid summer internship that seeks diverse undergraduate and graduate college students with high academic standing at elite institutions,” Tate said.
He also mentioned how the program was an opportunistic bridge that could potentially lead participating students to an entry level job within the company.
“These programs are under the HR umbrella at NASCAR.They are very special because every department can participate (Ford and PepsiCo. included). A lot of my coworkers were in these programs,” Tate said.
Additionally, Tate gave the students in attendance advice on how to become more competitive applicants. One of those tips he shared was to polish your online presence by cleaning up social media and making sure that they were presentable to potential recruiters. Another was to become more diverse in skills, not just demographics.
“Even though you may be applying for a job in one area, it’s good to have experience in other areas as well to show that you’re well rounded,” Tate said.
He also named a few of the entry level jobs that NASCAR offers.
“Pretty much all of our corporate roles, which include analytics, journalism, communications, and more. All of those roles are consistently becoming open and at a lot of our different track locations as well,” Tate said. “I think those are all great avenues, especially for someone that wants to move around with the job, we have tracks all over the country.”
“Our drive for diversity is very important in our business,” Tate said. “We can continue to become more diverse and talented and we just hope to revolve to become even better.”
Photo: Mason Foster/ The Johnsonian
