Want a job at Facebook?

New program, known as Access, beefs up efforts to hire local residents

The competition for a job at Facebook is fierce, but a new program could help East Palo Alto and Menlo Park residents get their feet in the door.

As Facebook continues to build more office space, some residents say the tech firm should be doing more to hire local workers who are bearing the brunt of rising housing costs.

So the company started a program in September called Access to help residents in East Palo Alto, Menlo Park’s Belle Haven neighborhood and North Fair Oaks speak directly to a “talent partner” about jobs that match their skills.

Residents create a profile through Access’ website that includes their career interests and a talent partner would then call them.

“What we really wanted to do was to make sure that the experience of our local candidates was a little more personable and they don’t fall through the cracks,” said Juan Salazar, Facebook’s public policy manager.

If the resident is a good fit, he or she would apply to the job and the talent partner would share that application with a recruiter. The partner might recommend a career development workshop if the candidate needs to spruce up his or her resume or interviewing skills.

From software engineers to art directors,

Facebook currently has more than 1,000 career openings in Menlo Park, according to the company’s career page.

But there are also other jobs, such as security guards, janitors and cooks available through vendors that work with the company.

“We do have highly qualified people in our community and we need a better way to reach out to them,” Salazar said.

Facebook declined to say how many Menlo Park and East Palo Alto residents currently work for the tech firm or how many local workers they’re trying to hire.

But a study released last year about Facebook’s campus expansion, which was later approved, noted that only 0.37 percent of the company’s workforce lives in East Palo Alto. About 0.24 percent resided in Menlo Park’s Belle Haven neighborhood. The data didn’t include contract workers.

As tech firms, including Facebook, Google and Amazon, expand in the Bay Area, tensions have flared between the companies and local residents concerned about more traffic and rising living costs.

In July, Facebook proposed another campus expansion in Menlo Park. The “Willow Campus” would include 1.75 million square feet of offices, 1,500 units of housing, 125,000 square feet of retail space along with a cultural and visitor center.

As of September, the company had 23,165 workers worldwide, an increase of 47 percent compared to the same period last year.

In Menlo Park, red cranes towered over construction crews working on Facebook’s new office space on Constitution Drive.

Longtime Menlo Park resident Jose Mauricio Rendon, who lives on Hamilton Avenue, said the neighborhood has become more safe since Facebook moved in but traffic is a “nightmare.”

His son tried to get a job at Facebook, he recalled, but wasn’t successful.

“He applied once, but I don’t know what happened,” Rendon said.

Facebook also hosts job fairs and worked with the nonprofit JobTrain to encourage contractors working on Facebook’s new office buildings to hire local graduates as apprentices.

JobTrain Steven Schmidbauer said some participants in the nonprofit’s construction program have been hired.

“Facebook has really stepped up because they’ve set a tone in working with those trade businesses by saying hiring local folks is something we want to do,” Schmidbauer said.

Hiring more local residents is also something that Bay Area activists have called on Facebook and other tech companies to do.

In March, a group called the Real Community Coalition, protested at 2100 University Ave., the location where Amazon leased space for a large office complex that would add 1,300 jobs.

JT Faraji, an East Palo Alto artist and activist who founded the group, said that Facebook’s efforts to hire more residents is a step in the right direction.

It’s still too early to tell though if these efforts will be effective, Faraji said.

“If you want to develop in the community quickly then you also have to be employing people quickly because that’s the only way that the existing population is going to stay here,” he said.

Contact Queenie Wong at 408-920-2706.