Last May, SmartRecruiters organized an event to help San Francisco’s tech sector make progressive strides towards offering fair, second chances to individuals with criminal histories.

We often hear of companies expressing their interest in the benefits of open dialogue between corporations and potential employees who served time. Some of those companies are taking steps towards actively hiring them. As unemployment rates continue to hover at or below historically low percentages, it appears that some companies are finally taking action by providing more equal opportunities to help these individuals return to the workforce.

According to a survey conducted by recruitment and staffing services firm Adecco USA, 49 percent of organizations are “loosening” requirements because they are unable to find enough qualified candidates. While this trend signals a positive change in perception, a growing number of organizations are taking a more proactive approach by elevating this historically underserved minority through professional training.

Last spring, SmartRecruiters hosted the “Bridging Worlds: From Prison to Position” event, inviting formerly incarcerated individuals—also known as “returning citizens”—along with talent acquisition professionals to the company’s downtown San Francisco office. The group shared actionable insights and engaged in discussions on changing attitudes towards hiring second-chance candidates.

Throughout the evening, SmartRecruiters and its partners provided interview coaching, workshopped resumes, offered mentorship advice, and led in-depth conversations on background checks. Over 50 recruiters, human resources professionals, and representatives from local nonprofits interacted with the group of formerly incarcerated individuals, some of whom served upwards of 35-year sentences.

“It’s work like this that keeps me motivated,” said Roy Baladi, Head of Marketplace for SmartRecruiters. Alongside colleagues and SmartRecruiters’ Founder & CEO Jerome Ternynck, Baladi spearheaded discussions, fielded questions, and introduced the participating organizations at the Bridging Worlds event at SmartRecruiters’ headquarters.

The nonprofit organizations in attendance earned notoriety throughout the Bay Area and beyond for their activism in helping returning citizens find gainful employment. The Anti-Recidivism Coalition and the Center for Employment Opportunities assist formerly incarcerated individuals obtain jobs; Code Tenderloin removes barriers to securing long-term employment by providing education, opportunity, and support to participants, including those with criminal records; Defy of Northern California uses an entrepreneurship model to create career opportunities for people with criminal histories; the Southern California firm 70 Million Jobs connects candidates with criminal records to companies that offer second-chance jobs.

“Each (returning citizen) spoke with a certain softness and grace I’d never likened to someone who had spent the better part of their life confined to a jail cell,” wrote Abigail H. Scott, who works as a Customer Success Specialist at Glassdoor. She continued, “There is a strength within them that I had not been in the presence of before.”

The Bridging Worlds event, described as “an inspiring pact between recruiters and formerly incarcerated individuals,” was galvanized by Baladi & Ternynck’s experience visiting a prison in 2018. During their stay, they forged strong bonds with the inmates. “I learned how to get back in touch with my own humanity,” said Baladi. 

This experience soon incited an idea: bridge the gap between intent and action by providing real second chances for returning citizens. At its core, the Bridging Worlds event encouraged more open dialogue between people who served time and companies, especially at the executive level. 

In certain US cities, moving the needle towards greater equality for formerly incarcerated individuals requires legal reinforcement. Known as The Fair Chance Ordinance (FCO), this law grants individuals with criminal histories equal opportunity for employment and imposes certain restrictions on employer inquiries into candidates’ criminal records.

Currently, more than 150 cities and counties and 35 states have adopted some form of fair chance legislation. The success of Fair Chance Ordinances in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York stems from FCO requirements on employers to complete a detailed analysis of why, if a candidate is rejected due to criminal history, their dismissal relates to their specific convictions. For example, a candidate with a DUI on their record wouldn’t necessarily be disqualified from working in a call center, but might be rejected for a position as a truck driver.

Before the FCO was enacted in San Francisco in 2014, “a company wasn’t required to explain its rationale for rejecting someone with a criminal record,” said Ian Harriman, Sales Manager at Checkr, a San Francisco firm that aggressively hires candidates with criminal histories. Now, if a company is suspected of discrimination due to a candidate’s criminal history, the FCO provides legal recourse—for candidates and businesses. 

“A candidate can ask to see documentation of the decision,” said Harriman, “to get a sense if the company was acting in bad faith.” If so, watchdog groups like the Human Rights Commission or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission can intervene.

Harriman suspects companies might be wary of hiring persons with criminal histories for fear of negligent hiring lawsuits. Previously, businesses were liable for any damages caused by the actions of an employee where it could be proven a hiring manager knew they were a “risk”. However, companies operating in cities with fair chance or “ban the box” laws can now defend themselves against such allegations by citing legal precedence. In this way, the FCO was designed not only to assist candidates with criminal histories find jobs, but to protect—and encourage—employers to hire them without fear of negligence suits.

However, legislation cannot be the only motivator for companies. Harriman urges employees to engage with their human resources teams to discuss policies and attitudes around hiring returning citizens. “The most impact comes when people get hired,” and continue to seek out this underserved minority.

In short: The more success stories we hear about individuals with criminal histories securing jobs and finding success in their positions, the easier it will be for others to follow.

To conclude SmartRecruiters’ Bridging Worlds event, all returning citizens in attendance were invited to apply for three job openings—Customer Support Representative, Influencer Marketing Manager, and Product Operations Specialist. With the promise of interview opportunities to come, this was a welcome step towards building a bridge that connects individuals with criminal histories to forward-thinking organizations.

“The more people understand the humanity of others,” said Harriman, “the more likely they are to hire them.”

We all have natural biases, and we don’t always know when they’re affecting us. Things get trickier when you’re a recruiter, monitoring your own thought process to hire without discrimination. With the advent of AI Applicant Tracking, are we looking at a future where machines can help us with that?

First, some context. I recently attended a recruiting event, focused on diversity in hiring. Barring the usual dreaded group activities, forced corporate roleplay and all, I did learn something about bias in recruiting: it’s more common than we think.

But it’s not malicious. More often than not it’s perpetrated unconsciously by well-meaning folks who enthusiastically attend meetings about non-bias hiring, who believe and champion the idea that diversity within a company is important.

One recruiter faced the group and described an experiment he conducted, himself as the guinea pig. He would cover applicant details on a CV like name, age and gender with post-it notes, not thinking it would make a difference in his hiring process. His conclusion?

“I use a lot of post-it notes in my hiring process now.”

This man had attended diversity seminars and conferences on non-bias hiring before. He thought it was enough to be aware of the issue, but as it turns out, you have to do something proactive.

HIs sticky-note approach, rudimentary though it may be, is what’s at the heart of most HR technology addressing negative bias. It’s as simple as asking ourselves what data we need in order to make the best decision.

Ok not quite so simple. Because recruiting, at its core, is itself a process of bias. Selecting few from many based on candidates’ most useful qualities for a particular job. A positive bias.

The problem is when lists include qualities that aren’t about the probability of success, like age, gender, sexual orientation, race, etc. Recruiters and hiring managers have to untangle their positive and negative biases, which is harder than it sounds. These are viewpoints they’ve been using their whole lives. And rather than address it, and take time, effort and introspection, it’s tempting to push blame down the line.

A common excuse from recruiters is that no women, POCs, etc, even apply to certain roles, so it’s not their fault if their choices are seen as less than ideally diverse. It’s true that training and outreach can help promote under-represented peoples in a particular trade, but it’s important to take steps at every stage in the candidate pipeline, because people need jobs now, and recruiters are the gatekeepers.

So beyond purposely withholding certain details like our friend at the event, recruiters and hiring managers can also reduce bias by creating a system of checks, which could include writing out a list of qualities a candidate should have for the job, and making sure that those are actually the qualities on which they are judged.

While this simple method of self-accountability can be quite effective, the list itself could be flawed and that’s where we need technology.

Up until now we’ve used algorithms that often adopt the bias of an institution, or the people doing the hiring, because the calculations are based on that institution’s single data source. What makes our technology different is the vast amount of data we collect from a variety of industries, which allows us to find appropriate candidates from unexpected places, candidates you never may have known existed, or have considered before.

The AI sources and selects top candidates to interview far faster than any human could, and with less bias. The idea of machines doing a job better than people is always off-putting at first, but think of what you could do with all that saved time: actual face time with candidates. Time to nurture connections. Build a network your company can draw from in the future.

SmartRecruiters AI aims to address the problem of human bias, and let the machine take care of that part of the process. And when the hiring manager is shown their shortlist, our product will then hold humans accountable. Our collaborative approach adds community checks and balances to the recruitment process, which means platform administrators will be able to see the work of their hiring team, which means if a particular manager hires a white male over a black female who scored higher, they will have to justify this to their coworkers, their superiors, and themselves.

I was intrigued last week when I received the results of a survey from the giant Menlo Park-based staffing agency Robert Half, saying that more than three quarters of hiring managers think it’s appropriate for job candidates to ask about compensation and benefits in the initial phone screening or first two job interviews. I’ve written at least three stories saying it’s best for job seekers to put off salary negotiations until an offer is on the table. Was I wrong?

Paul McDonald, a senior executive director at Robert Half, says, “In this market, with 1% or 2% unemployment for some jobs, employers want to get to this business quickly. They want to see if there’s a good fit and they’re OK with the candidate bringing up the salary in order to be efficient with time.” Conversely, he says, applicants should be ready to answer questions about salary early in the process. “We believe honesty is the best policy,” he says.” If someone asks what has been your salary in the past three positions, we coach the applicant to be prepared for that.” The firm surveyed 300 hiring managers by phone in December 2013.

Has something changed in salary negotiation strategy since I first wrote about the topic two years ago? To answer that question I turned to three of my best career coach sources and to Heidi Ellingson, senior director of employment services at Middleton, WI-based Spectrum Brands, a diversified consumer products company with 13,500 employees worldwide, which makes everything from Rayovac batteries to George Foreman grills. She doesn’t recommend that candidates bring up the subject but instead she has her own staff raise salary in the very first phone screening. “We want to make sure we’re in the right ballpark,” she says. Frequently candidates don’t want to reveal either their salary or what they hope to earn, in which case Ellison’s team tries at least to get a range. “We don’t want to waste people’s time if we’re $20,000 apart,” she says.

Have I been giving my readers bad advice? In a word, no. The job of staffing firms like Robert Half is to screen candidates for employers so they can present the most viable candidates, and hiring managers have an incentive to get candidates to name a number early in the process. But from the candidate’s perspective, especially if you are negotiating for a managerial or executive position, it’s best to avoid saying anything specific about salary until a job offer is on the table.

“It’s like saying on a first date, ‘how many kids do you want,’” says Roy Cohen, a longtime coach and author of The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide. Sarah Stamboulie, a coach who previously worked in human resources at Cantor Fitzgerald, Morgan Stanley and Nortel Networks, agrees. “You don’t want to be negotiating salary until they’re at their maximum love—their maximum enthusiasm for you,” she says. Once a prospective employer has convinced themself and their colleagues that you are their first choice, they are much more likely to bump up your package in order to get you.

Longtime coach Ellis Chase, author of The Fun Forever Job: Career Strategies that Work, agrees with Cohen and Stamboulie and lays out four reasons naming a salary is a bad idea: 1) If you come in very low, the potential employer won’t take you seriously, 2) If you come in low the employer will think they can pay you less than they had planned to offer, 3) You price yourself out of the running, and 4) Even if you fall in the right range, you may not realize that the job comes with more responsibilities than you had thought and now you’ve ruined your negotiating stance.

There are a couple of exceptions however. Stamboulie has worked with young up-and-comers at top consulting firms who have gotten multiple offers from employers who might not know the candidates want to make at least, say, $150,000. The fact that they don’t need to accept any of the offers puts them in a strong position, especially if they know they want to shoot high.

The other reason would be if you’re a superstar, you’re happy where you are and you’d only leave for a certain number. A third reason could be if you’re talking to a small startup where it’s tough to glean ahead of time what the salary range would be. Then you might want to name what Stamboulie calls an “anchor number” that will help the firm know what you think you’re worth.

What if the hiring manager or decision maker asks you what you make? That’s a tougher question. Chase says you should rarely volunteer a number and instead counter with a line like, “I’m very interested in this position but I would hate for a dollar figure to eliminate me from consideration because if there’s a fit, I’m sure we’ll be able to work it out.” If that doesn’t work, you could try, “Could you give me an idea of your range?” The goal, as I’ve written before, is to wait for the offer and then to get the decision-maker to be the first to name a number. If the hiring manager becomes visibly annoyed, says Chase, then you have to relent, but it’s always better to give a range, rather than a precise figure.

Cohen agrees. “A lot of hedge funds will bring it up. They’ll say what are you earning and what are you looking for. If you don’t give them some sort of benchmark you’ll look like you’re trying to tap dance around it.”

One of Cohen’s Wall Street trader clients can’t hold himself back. “He won’t do his homework,” says Cohen. “He’ll go into an interview and say, ‘I want to know what this job pays, I want to know the base, I want to know the formula, I want to know what cash I’ll get at the end of the year.’” According to Cohen, this candidate has blown three or four opportunities in the first interview. “When the market was stronger, they would tolerate this sort of thing,” he says. “But now he’s shooting himself in the foot.”

The folks at Robert Half may be right about the preferences of recruiters and HR managers, but it’s always best to try to bypass those gate keepers and go straight to the person who will make the ultimate decision about whether you get the job.

This article was written by Susan Adams from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, your workspace to find and hire great people.

By now we’ve all seen the 2013 Gallup report on employee engagement, The State of the American Workplace. Words that come to mind when I re-read the report:  bummer, disheartening, bad news.  But I also wonder: what exactly did we expect? Look around you, managers, and you’ll see disengaged employees with the Zombie stare, some with the sour look of the disappointed, a few with the overly positive, can-do smile, trying desperately to make things work. A lot of this is the fault of a poor connection between managers and line-of-business employees and it inevitably trickles into a broken recruitment and communication process with potential candidates. The good news? We can change these statistics. It’s in your power to take control of your recruiting process and employer brand. The truth is most job seekers are looking for more than salary when they decide to apply to work at your company.

Can employee disengagement and bad branding be prevented? Can HR and Leaders learn to bring people back to productivity? Absolutely. Will it be tough? You know it. Will it be worth it? Yes, a thousand times. How do you start? Let’s take a closer look at employer brand.  Are you true to it in your hiring and recruiting process? How your employees represent the company’s mission and brand is as important as anything Leaders or HR says in the hiring process. Make sure the stories align well and is accurately reflecting your current brand and the overall mission.

Then look at the employee experience – What employees do everyday, the actions they take, and how they perceive the actions of their managers and top management.  As Blue Ocean Strategy Institute co-directors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne suggest in this month’s Harvard Business Review, focusing on the acts and activities of management and employees is critical to understanding how a company operates. Actions, as our moms have told us, do speak louder than words, and in the world of work they separate good managers, and great companies and truthful branding, from the mediocre. My latest piece on Dice.com provides more information on just how much technology is changing in the world of work for leaders and hiring practitioners around the globe.

Then look at how you’re hiring: think candidate experience.  Do you force job seekers through a maze-like microsite for career opportunities, then fail to acknowledge their applications with an email or letter (spoiler alert: approximately 70% of hiring companies are in this camp)?  Do you put people through tests and five phone screens, then never follow up? If so, you’re doing damage to your brand. Smart companies know better: they’ve begun to adopt new technologies to streamline the hiring process: video, digital interviews, social recruiting and more.

A few more things can make or break employer brand and candidate experience:

Communicate throughout the process. If you do a phone screen, give feedback.  If a candidate comes to your career site, acknowledge the visit with an email explaining your hiring process. Technology is available now to make these steps easy; there’s no reason not to do it, unless you want to damage your brand.

Think like a candidate. Another timeless reminder: treat others as you’d like to be treated. This Golden Rule is especially important if you want to ensure good candidate experience. And why wouldn’t you?

Be a person first, an HR manager second. People want to deal with people. Make your hiring process as personal as you can. You’re not dealing with robots (just yet at least).

Set expectations. This is part of the communications process but it deserves a call-out. Don’t leave people hanging; let them know what your process is, when they can expect to hear back, how quickly you’re planning to make a decision.

Candidate experience is a two way street. Make sure yours is good and true to your brand, or you are setting the brand up for damage both upfront in the recruiting process and to your internal employees and stakeholders. It’s easier to maintain a good reputation than it is to rebuild it. Employer brand and candidate experience are linked, and they matter greatly to recruit and retain your talent.

This article was written by Meghan M. Biro from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, the only platform managers and candidates love.

Many of us in HR and Leadership circles – I am among them – bemoan the negativity that springs up during the process of recruiting employees, affecting positive candidate experience and your employer brand.  One would think companies would have a stake in ensuring candidates, whether they are hired or not, have a positive experience with the hiring company and your recruiting process. Others might point out that not getting the job is in itself enough to sour the candidate on the company if he or she is passed over. Yet studies have shown even unsuccessful applicants retain a positive experience of the company, if a too-often-overlooked link is maintained: clear, unambiguous communication.

Most people just want to know they’ve been heard. We need the organizations we engage with – as consumers, as personal brands, as parents, as just about anything  – to be clear, to set or correct expectations, and to do us the courtesy of responding. There’s even an annual award for companies that maintain a good candidate experience, the Candidate Experience Awards. I’m proud to be on the council for this organization because it’s such an important cause. The most recent awards report, issued in 2013, highlighted 63 companies that excel at creating a positive candidate experience. Before you roll your eyes and say ‘ugh, another vanity report,” let’s consider the following:

• Nearly 60% of survey respondents (candidates at surveyed companies) feel they have a relationship with a company before they apply for a job. In the Internet age, what recruiter or company would expect anything less? Most people research a company before they decide to apply, using social media, career pages, LinkedIn and networks of acquaintances and friends who work for the target company.
• A staggering 75% of candidates who apply for a job never hear back, according to a recent CareerBuilder survey. Yes, this is staggering and not good. This is unacceptable.

How can any rational Leader or HR team justify this? How can any responsible company decide it isn’t worth the time to respond to an applicant? We’re not even talking constructive feedback here: we’re talking common courtesy. Even an auto-generated email, followed up with a note or call, would be 100 times better than dead silence.

There’s tremendous risk in ignoring applicants, even unqualified applicants, when sites like Glassdoor and blogs are so easy to access – and so simple to use to leave anonymous critique of an employer.

And criticism of an employer brand does not begin and end with a spurned candidate. Your own employees are looking at those sites too. The more often they see their employer called out for shoddy recruiting practices, the more likely they are to decide it’s not a company they want to work for. Then your recruiting problem morphs into a retention problem.

So what’s the solution?

Communication. It’s that simple, and that hard. You must respond and acknowledge applicants, even if it’s via an automated response from an HR software package. If you can provide direct and constructive feedback, so much the better.

Why does communication matter so much?

A 2013-2014 study (download the PDF) by Towers Watson proves the link between ROI and effective communications.  Quoting directly from the report summary (emphasis is mine):

• “Companies with high effectiveness in change management and communication are three and a half times more likely to significantly outperform their industry peers than firms that are not effective in these areas.
• The most effective companies build a differentiated employee value proposition (EVP), and are three times more likely to focus on behaviors that drive organization success instead of focusing on program cost.”

That last point bears repeating: “focus on behaviors that drive organization success.” It’s simple, elemental, and utterly dependent on good communications. To be a successful company, you need to focus on behaviors that foster a culture of success.  Communications is one of those behaviors. Towers Watson reminds readers of its report, quote, “Cultivate a culture of community and information sharing.” Within and without, with employees and candidates, the key to success – and attracting the candidates who will help your business grow – is good communications. There’s just no substitute.

So I’ll throw down a challenge for HR practitioners and Leaders everywhere: tell me about how you communicate successfully. Share how you communicate progress – with job applicants? Where does data fit in? How do you create a workplace culture of open and honest communications with employees, so they recommend your workplace to their peers? What tools do you use – software, back of the envelope, or other – to remind yourself daily that good, honest and direct communications are fundamental HR and Leadership skills?

Let’s close the gap between candidate experience and communications, even if it’s one applicant at a time. Let’s be good communicators, more than just stewards of process and regulations. Let’s take back good HR and Leadership that drives a better culture, before it’s taken away from us. What do you say?

This article was written by Meghan M. Biro from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, the only hiring platform managers and candidates love.

Kids don’t care about what you do, they mainly care about why you do it. When I had to explain to my nine year old daughter what I do, it was simple. I don’t explain software features, partnerships, revenue streams – all of this means nothing to them, all children care about is the purpose of what you do.

“I create jobs.”

Now, everyday after work my daughter asks,  “Dad, how many jobs did you create today?” And together, we open up the dashboard to see how many jobs were created through SmartRecruiters.

Nothing like children to remind you of your purpose, and outside of your family, there is probably no one you spend more time with than your coworkers. I recently read that the average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime. With that I’d like to share with you my three pieces of advice to combine social good with making a profit:

1. Never forget the importance of purpose. Every worker in the room should have an answer to ‘Why are you here?’ that goes well beyond money.

2. Does your work create a sustainable balance between for profit and for benefit? Always be striving to strengthen the alignment of these interests.

3. Value your role. To me, as an entrepreneur, I not only take pride in helping my clients create jobs, but also in creating jobs for all my employees.

Thank you for seeing the bigger, simpler picture with me. I ask you to take a moment out of your day for that hiring manager, that entrepreneur, that recruiter, that corner store owner, that human resources professional – to everyone who creates a job – and say, “Thank You.”

“Veterans facing unemployment have a much different experience than the civilian population,” says Dr. Mike Haynie, Veteran, Executive Director and Founder of Institute for Military Families and Veterans (IVMF) at Syracuse University. “It’s unique in a way most people do not understand.”

Dr. Mike Haynie served for 14 years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He was a professor of management at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs before becoming a faculty member of Syracuse. Haynie explained, “Syracuse has a long history of supporting veterans. After World War II Syracuse opened its doors to veterans with a program that admitted each military personnel to Syracuse after their return from war.” This more than doubled the student population. Syracuse had the largest military population in all of New York, and one of the highest in the nation. After learning of this long-standing tradition of supporting veterans, Haynie’s arrival and efforts to help veterans gain employment seem serendipitous.

No one will argue that yesterday and today’s soldiers are not heroes. We all know this to be true. We honor them for their service, their commitment and their hard work. So why is it, despite their status as heroes it is so hard for veterans to enter the workforce? Dr. Mike Haynie saw this problem of unemployment among veterans and spearheaded efforts to change the norm. In an interview with me, Dr. Haynie explained why hiring a soldier is essential to rebuilding our economy, can grow your business and how the Institute for Veterans and Military Families is bridging the employment gap for veterans.

Shortly after arriving at Syracuse University Dr. Haynie founded the Entrepreneurship Boot Camp for Veterans (EBV) with Disabilities.”I was teaching entrepreneurship and management, and I figured I should be entrepreneurial myself.” Haynie was ready to help veterans.

Haynie saw a lack of training, educational, and entrepreneurial availabilities open to veterans. Understanding that this was a unique population he developed courses that cater specifically to veterans, such as self employment courses, vocational training, and transition classes. Over 500 veterans have received EBV training since 2007, and EBVs are now implemented in multiple schools across the country.

“We call them the post 9-11 generation. We saw veterans transitioning into civilian life with an unprecedented rate of war related disabilities, conservatively around 30%. That’s when it hit me,” says Mike Haynie.

As the EBV program continued to evolve and grow in popularity so did Dr. Haynie’s ideas, knowledge, and inspiration for helping soldiers gain employment. Dr. Haynie continued to develop programs for military entrepreneurship training and education, in 2011 the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse became the first institute of its kind in the nation, an accredited university established specifically for veterans and their families. Created, “in service to those who have served,” IVMF focuses of diminishing challenges to the veterans’ community through programs, research, and education. Less than 25% of veterans over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree, but IVMF provides an opportunity to change that by providing curriculum based on veterans needs and breaking down barriers to education veterans previously faced.

“The ultimate goal is to get to a place where employers understand the value of veterans in the workplace,” says Dr. Haynie. “We want to make it so all veterans and their families have access to programs that will give them the skills to either start their own businesses or become employed in the general workforce.”

The IVMF not only works with veterans and families but employers as well.

Haynie explained, “There’s a stigma against things like PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) still, it’s certainly real but it’s definitely not a reason not to be hiring veterans.” In order to break down this stigma IVMF publishes handbooks, and offers trainings teaching employers how to recruit and work with veterans.

“People wanted data, as an academic my reaction was to find the research. It turns out there was tons out there making a case for veterans in the workplace but the problem is that no one reads it other than academics.” It was just a matter of making the information public and digestible. In March 2012, Haynie and the IVMF published “Business Case for Hiring a Veteran: Beyond the Clichés.” The paper outlines the scientific reason behind hiring veterans, explaining that hiring for some is mostly art, but with veterans it’s the science of hiring that will motivate US employers to hire.

Dr. Haynie asked me, “How often is it that you can hire someone who is ACTUALLY able to make decisions under pressure, and has the background to prove it?” 

It is an all too unfortunate truth that we need to face; unemployment among veterans is too high. IVMF reports, “the average unemployment rate for female veterans was 11.1%, as compared to 7.1% for female non-veterans. For 2012, veterans ages 20-24 are unemployed at a rate 13% higher than their non-veteran, age group counterparts.” We are getting closer to finding solutions, and can only hope that employers continue to see the value in hiring in veterans. Dr. Haynie emphasized, veterans are entrepreneurial, have high levels of trust, work well in teams, have high levels of commitment, cross-cultural skills, have technical skills, can switch tasks skillfully, and are comfortable with change and diverse work settings. This employee meets all of your businesses’ needs, and as your business’ needs change, this employee can adapt.

So what’s the hold up in hiring? Haynie is hopeful, “I’ve seen more improvement in the past couple years than I ever have since I have been involved with this. I think things will continue to get better.”

SmartRecruiters is the hiring platform with everything you need to source talent, manage candidates, and make the right hire.

Hearing multiple conversations about unemployment and slow job growth is not uncommon. Reports of slow job creation, and increasing unemployment rates have been common headlines across varieties of news outlets. Although there is plenty of debate as to who and what caused the recent economic lag, there is one thing we can all agree on: we need to do whatever we can to support job growth and entrepreneurship to help revive the economy. Big brands can help.

The Business Civic Leadership Center reported, “Beyond hiring, large businesses are also advancing job creation through promoting entrepreneurship.” Their research confirms that indirect job growth and business ecosystems are key contributors to a growing economy. These big brands understand that creating jobs for their own company is not enough; they must also fund job creation initiatives beyond their company. They promote job growth, through entrepreneurship training, skills development, microloans, and business classes. These are the Top 10 Big Brands Supporting Job Creation Initiatives:

10. UPS: Ken Sternad, president of the UPS Foundation says, “the National Urban League is our No. 1 partner.” Since 1962 UPS has donated  over $15 million to the organization in addition to $25 million in support of additional local initiatives. The NUL is dedicated to, “enabling African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.” UPS executives even serve as teachers and National Urban League officers at the national and local level.

9. Dow Chemical: Recognizing a skills gap in the labor market, Dow Chemical invested in spreading education. Dow Chemical provided a sizable grant that allowed Los Medanos College to complete the construction of a new modular lab to train future electrical and instrumentation technicians. With cutting edge technology and curriculum students were able to excel, at the closing of the first year the lab held a career fair connecting students to opportunity.

8. General Mills: Those new to the job search will constantly hear, “networking is key.” Emphasizing this point, General Mills partnered with The BrandLab, a Minneapolis- based nonprofit to host a networking event for students. General Mills is a founding sponsor of The BrandLab, the organization provides students from diverse socioeconomic programs the opportunity to gain experience, training, and exposure in careers in advertising and marketing. The program offers classes, internships, and has awarded more than 40 college scholarships.

7. MetLife: The MetLife Foundation is a longstanding tradition of MetLife culture supporting a variety of economic growth programs. Since it was established in 1976, MetLife Foundation, as a whole, has provided more than $530 million in grants. Special Investment Programs support community ventures that do not meat typical investment criteria. These projects tend to meet specific social needs such as affordable housing, health care centers, arts, education, and economic development.

6. Citigroup: In 2011 the Citi Foundation invested $78 million in philanthropic and economic empowerment projects globally. By establishing strategic partnerships the Citi Foundation is able to support over 800 different programs supporting and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. Citigroup provides training for those seeking to enter the formal economy knowing, “jobs are a foundation of economic opportunity and can be key drivers of financial inclusion.”

5. JP Morgan Chase: As a partner of the Institute for Verterans and Military Families JP Morgan Chase has committed to a donation of $7.5 million over five years. Together these programs partner with the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities, which teaches returning veterans the ins and outs of starting a new business. JP Morgan Chase’s chief administrative officer Frank Bisignano said, “we owe our nation’s veterans more than gratitude- we owe them the opportunity to live successful lives following their service.”

4. Syracuse University: The South Side Innovation Center was created by Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management. SSIC provides multiple programs from for entrepreneurs in the local community. SSIC provides, “office space and equipment, hands-on training and counseling, roundtables, networking, classroom courses, business plan development, access to loans, marketing assistance, and help in opening markets.” They are also partners with JP Morgan in the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans.

3. Create Jobs USA: Founded by Starbucks and The Opportunity Finance Network Create Jobs USA is committed to making employment opportunities in the United States. By donating five dollars, donors receive an American made bracelet that reads, “indivisible.” One hundred percent of the proceeds go the Create Jobs USA fund, which provide loans to underserved community businesses, including small businesses, microenterprises, nonprofit organizations, commercial real estate, and affordable housing.

2. The Center for Employment Training: With over 17 locations in five different states, the Center for Employment Training’s sole mission is to make employment opportunities accesible. Providing job-training, language classes, and basic skills classes, CET aims to fight poverty, decrease dependence on public aid and promote development. CET’s model simulates the workplace so students are fully prepared with marketable skills. The Center for Employment Training also offers support services and counseling to assist in self-sufficiency.

1. FedEx: Empowering over 9 million children worldwide, FedEx’s sponsorship of Junior Achievement Worldwide helps “young people appreciate and understand the role of business in our society, and to cultivate business, teamwork, and leadership skills.” It is the world’s largest organization dedicated to preparing young adults to exceed in a global economy. FedEx doesn’t only support this institution financially, but thousands of FedEx team members volunteer to educate students on business, trade and economies around the world.

At SmartRecruiters our driving cause is to create Zero Unemployment by making hiring easy. In order to give back to our community we host Give Labor events that provide job seekers with resume and cover letter advice, mock interviews, social profile updates and if possible introductions. These social good initatives create a ripple effect and are able to sustain a culture of giving outside of our office walls. These companies know that in order to sustain a thriving economy we need support our neighbors, and community to by providing as much we can to help them grow personally and gain economic independence.

The BCLC reports that, “in addition to gifting donations to nonprofit partners associated with entrepreneurialism, the financial giants have also started programs to incubate innovation as part of their core business.” Taking a cue from these companies is key, though we may not have the same financial capabilities the actions of Give Labor are simple and effective.

Learn More about Job Creation Initiatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Business for Good Map:

Historically careers have tended to be managed for us (speaking for myself here as well) or we have allowed other people in our company or life to orchestrate our careers for us rather than us wrestling control over our future and deciding for ourselves what we’d like to do next. Typically those conversations have gone something like this:

Your manager’s manager or a person who knows of you says to someone else who knows you (perhaps your manager):

M1: “Do you think Mary/Johnny would be interested/capable of doing role X?”
M2: “Yes/No/Maybe …”

And this conversation is conducted without your input, your knowledge or consent.

This conversation then translates into a conversation with you along the lines of:

M2: “Hi Johnny/Mary, you may/may not be perfect for this role”

It’s as if you had nothing to say in determining the direction of your own career. The main reason I’m so supportive of this book is because it pushes the agenda that you should no longer be on the receiving end of that conversation, you should actually be driving it. Because you have analyzed your skills, looked at your career options and defined an adaptive path – you would have had a conversation with your boss or your boss’s boss about the next step for you within the company and you would have decided whether or not that fits with your short/medium/long terms goals. You have decided to take a much more pro-active role in your career!

My interest in this area was first informed by the well-known business author Charles Handy and his book The Elephant and the Flea where he proposed that the future of work would be much less about the large employers and much more about freelancers and independents. Going towards this model requires a radical shift (an on-going process) in how one needs to manage one’s career and hence why this book emphasizes the need to think like a startup and “Pivot” (a term popularized by Eric Ries and the approach he developed to Lean Startups) to the next role in your career path.

One of the recurring themes in “The StartUp of You” is to have an “ABZ” plan for your career. Where A is your preferred option, B is your next best option and Z is your fall back position – a role you know you can do and ensures you don’t over-extend yourself based on your personal risk profile (thus ensuring you still have a roof over your head, family still fed, etc.). To make their case the authors respectfully review very successful books in this vein, like “What Color Is Your Parachute?“, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“, etc. but rightfully point out that these books lack an understanding of today’s realities: globalism, rate of technology change, increased competition that force change upon us all in our careers. Therefore in managing a career you have to able to adapt to that change and the authors suggest several approaches to be prepared for and manage that change.

If you decide to read this book (I hope you do) and adopt some of its recommendations, you are much less likely to be impacted by your career and much more likely to be able to adapt to the changes that are coming. And we all can benefit from a little bit of that.

Jarlath O’Carroll is the founder of Jobspeaker, an online job seeker tool to help make job search more efficient and effective. Follow @JobSpeaker on Twitter.