Back in the late 1960’s James Brown encouraged folks to “Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud", and Niani Tolbert lives by those words. When the news reports of racial injustice and senseless killings of blacks in the United States rose, Niani seized the opportunity to leverage her recruiting skills and black pride to create #HireBlack, an initiative that assists companies with their search for Black talent, with a particular emphasis on Black women. #HireBlack has set a goal of “helping 10,000 Black women get trained, hired, and promoted" and we are here for it!

Press play to hear why this Black recruiter started this initiative, her thoughts on allyship, and the dope future plans. 

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About Niani Tolbert

Niani is a marketer-turned-recruiter and the Founder of the #HIREBLACK Initiative. 

#HIREBLACK started as a LinkedIn post to help 19 Black womxn get resume feedback on Juneteenth and grew into an initiative whose goal is to help 10,000 Black womxn get trained, hired, or promoted.

Thanks to the support from our community and allies, we are now a network of 3,000 people and counting.

 Here are some of our key accomplishment in the past year:

• The #HIREBLACK Portal, our FREE safe space for Black womxn and diverse talent
• We offer weekly LinkedIn Live sessions every Thursday at noon.
• Our partnership with 81cents gives one free compensation review to a #HIREBLACK community member each month.
• We are producing a #HIREBLACK Virtual Summit all about “starting a micro-revolution” in the fall.
• We have recently wrapped up our mentor matching sessions, and we were able to match over 300 Black Womxn with career mentors based on industry and management experience! We partnered with Conde Nast, DoorDash, Sony Music Entertainment- along with recruiters at top companies to make this happen.
• For Black Women’s Equal Pay Day (August 13th), we hosted a free webinar for 400+ attendees on negotiation strategies with leading womxn.
• For Black Women’s Equal Pay Day (August 13th), we also made a “Radically Transparent Salary Database”: a crowd-sourced resource of 600+ salaries and demographics shared anonymously to offer transparency, compare and understand our market rate.
• As a marketer, Niani was noted as one of Business Insiders’ 30 most creative people in advertising under 30.

Connect with Niani on LinkedIn and IG