This past weekend, I was able to attend Out for Work’s 2009 West Coast Regional OUT for Work LGBTQA College Student Career Conference. It was an amazing experience. It was the first time they had done a regional conference, and I was glad to be apart of it. They have a huge national conference in September every year, however, for me it is hard to get to DC and it was after the first week of school so I did not know what my schedule would be like.

While this conference was on a much smaller scale, it still had a lot to offer for those of you who can more easily get to Los Angeles over DC. It had workshops, keynote speakers, celebrities, panel discussions, a resume workshop and a career fair. With Lockheed Martin as the National Presenting Partner, we got to hear a lot from them, but also from others including Ernst & Young, Human Rights Campaign, Sodexo, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, BP, and The Williams Institute. All of the sponsors of the conference can be found on the conference website.

During the conference I got to talk to Nick Verreos from Project Runway Season 2 and Carey Sherrell from the Apprentice season 6, as well as Donna Rose who I feel is a celebrity as a trandgender activist.

I learned so much from the conference regarding the fact if you should be out at work. The consensus seems to be that you should bring your whole self to work. Most of the companies that I got to hear talk mentioned affinity groups or organizations run through bigger companies. Companies have these organizations so that groups of people can get together and get to know one another through out the company. There are LGBTA groups, as well as Latino/a, African American, Asian American/Pacific Islander, as well as any other group people within the company feel are needed. These are a great way to meet other people and to gain support in coming out at work.

One really cool thing that Out for Work also has on their website is a resume review. They will have HR professionals look at your resume and give it back to you and all you have to do is email it to them. You should check it out!

I hope I will be able to make it to the National Conference this year, which will be September 25-27, and I hope to see you there!