Black Internet Effect by Shavone Charles

Author:Shavone Charles [Charles, Shavone]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2022-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

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Throughout my first two years in college, I didn’t have a solid idea of which industry I wanted to work in full-time—and I knew I had a short amount of time to figure it out. Whether it was school clubs, university jobs, or internships, I went with my gut and stayed closely tuned in to what inspired me. If I didn’t have a passion for it or enjoy doing it, even through the challenging moments, I stopped and pivoted to something new.

Internships, preparation, and proactive initiative aside, the onset of my senior year of college brought with it a serious sense of panic and anxiety. That panic and anxiety had a name, and it was called “the First.” Coming back to campus as the first-ever Google intern from my school and then later the first UC Merced student to intern at BET Networks, the first person to go to college in my family, the first, the first, the first— it all created an immeasurable amount of pressure. And as amazing as those opportunities were, I still hadn’t gotten a job offer secured. Here I was, heading into college graduation with no guarantee of my future or being able to feed myself after June.

So, again, I took to the internet and embarked on my next search. I did some digging online for other jobs in tech and applied for a community support job at Facebook. I ended up getting a call back from the recruiter months after I applied. Thank God! I might actually not be unemployed after graduation, I thought. After a few chats with the recruiter, Facebook flew me all the way out to Austin, Texas, for an interview. The interview was for a user support role that I had zero background experience in, but I didn’t have any other leads, so I flew out for the interview without hesitation.

The day of my interview at the Facebook Austin office, I sat alongside about six other job applicants in a stuffy and crowded lobby, nervous as all outside. I found it odd that we were all sitting there next to each other, sweating bullets. After we started talking to one another, we eventually realized that we were there for the same job (fun). I completed my interviews and they went horribly. It turned out that the job I applied for required coding experience, which I 100 percent didn’t have. That weeded me right on out, but during my last talk with the manager of the team, he mentioned I’d be great for a communications job there. “Yes, exactly,” I immediately replied. I would be perfect for a job like that. But there was one major factor that stained my impression of Facebook: I didn’t see one Black person or person of color during my time on site. Even after the interviews, no one.

My recruiter was kind enough to feed me some of their delicious free food (the tech company standard) and give me a tour of their offices. I looked forward to that and thought, Hey, maybe I’ll see some diversity before I head out today.

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