Weekly Update: Job Ads, Tweet Maps, Impacts, #GFOA2017

Posted on May 21, 2017

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Dear ELGL members,

I just got done planting my garden for this summer. Highlights: a TON of pumpkins (I’m completely obsessed with growing pumpkins – this year I’m going for volume and I planted jack o lantern pumpkins and designer white pumpkins), edamame, various peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, carrots, and herbs. Stay tuned for lots of pictures of my pumpkins on Twitter this year.

What I’m reading:

What I’m listening to:

  • Up First podcast on NPR – with the barrage of news and scandal every. single. day. – this podcast is a good start tot he day to keep me up to date on what’s happening and the latest developments I might have missed.

What I’m watching:

    • Face the Nation – it’s Sunday morning, and Kent and I are all about watching Sunday morning news programming, even if the commercials make us feel like senior citizens:

[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”Job Ads” color=”purple”][vc_column_text]I spent a lot of time this week thinking about how ELGL shares information with members about local government jobs. I also launched a weekly video series where we’ll share jobs posted by our members on social media in video format, and we’ll also start adding those jobs to each Friday’s GovLove podcast. This gives our members’ job posts even more “ooomph” and exposure.

This started when I had a recap conversation with Michael Brown, Robby Hammond, and Tami Cockeram about the work I did for the city of Hillsboro when they were looking for their new HR director. Michael, Robby, and Tami gave me feedback on how the recruitment went from their perspective: highlights included a very diverse and different applicant pool. Takeaway is that ELGL finds new, different, and exciting candidates during job searches. Low points were some serious technology challenges when I was trying to connect in to first round interviews. Takeaway is that tech challenges need to be worked out in advance of those important first impression meetings.

I enjoyed helping with their recruitment; it showcased how strong ELGL’s network is, and also highlighted that the diversity of our membership is a bonus for progressive local governments who value diversity in leadership.

One reflection from my work with Hillsboro was how difficult it is to post jobs in places where you know the right candidates will see them. There are so many professional associations out there, often charging very high fees for job posts. Compare that to ELGL’s $250 “All-In” membership fee which guarantees unlimited job postings and promotions, and we’re offering a real steal of a deal for job sharing.

So, I put together this spreadsheet of local gov job posting locations and fees. I hope it’s helpful to our members as they consider where they want to post jobs. I’ve included the job posting web link, as well the pricing for different types of posts from 13 different professional associations:

Local Government Job Ads Spreadsheet – May 2017 edition

Did I miss any association that you typically post jobs with? Let me know and I’ll add them to this list.

One last observation: I’ve received some pushback in recent weeks from recruiting firms who want to post their jobs on ELGL.org under their membership (we recently changed our policy and only local gov organizations that join ELGL can post their jobs with us), instead of encouraging their clients to join ELGL or passing along the $250 fee as a recruitment expense.

When I look at the above spreadsheet, and think about the breadth and reach of our ELGL network (more about that in the next section of this report), it’s asinine that recruitment firms aren’t encouraging their clients to become “All In” ELGL members and take advantage of our local government network.

The result of this reluctance? Local governments who are using recruitment firms might miss out on the chance to advertise to the ELGL network, which is going to result in less diverse and creative applicant pools.

Kudos to Heather Gantz at Waldron for being a recruitment firm leader on directing her clients to join ELGL. Heather is helping ELGL grow its network, and also ensuring that her clients get the full benefit of posting jobs with us. This is going to result in more vibrant and robust applicant pools that reflect the changing nature of local gov leadership.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”Tweet Maps” color=”purple”][vc_column_text]Thanks to the leadership of Ben McCready, ELGL partnered with the Social Media Analytics Command Center (SMACC) lab at Illinois State University. SMACC is a specialized computer lab whose primary goal is to analyze public conversations from social media outlets, popular discussion forums, and major blogs.

In March 2017, we shared with SMACC leader Nate Carpenter some key terms and accounts to analyze. SMACC began collecting Twitter data for us, and measured the impact of ELGL’s social media accounts from March 1 – May 3, and then for May 10-12 (#ELGL17).

The findings? ELGL’s reach is already awesome, and growing fast. For the two month timeframe (March & April), we had a potential reach of 5.1 million views of ELGL’s tweets and retweets.

And, during #ELGL17, we had 697 connected Twitter users, sharing 3,997 tweets 1.3 million times during the 1.5 day conference! SMACC graphed these interactions into this really cool map, where you can see who is tweeting to whom.

You can begin to see the interconnectivity of the ELGL social network, which aligns with our goal to connect and communicate on local gov topics. Data + social media + mapping = ELGL’s jam.

[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”Impacts” color=”purple”][vc_column_text css_animation=”none”]I want to highlight three great reflection blog posts from #ELGL17:

Our partnerships with these companies (and other #ELGL17 sponsors) are important because they allow us to share private sector perspectives and products with public sector members. I loved reading and seeing the takeaways from Nina (Viewpoint Cloud), Angelica (NRC), and Luke (ProudCity).[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”#GFOA2017″ color=”purple”][vc_column_text]It’s GFOA week! GFOA is the Government Finance Officers Association, and they host an annual conference; this year it’s in Denver. Dan Weinheimer is representing ELGL at the conference, and many ELGL members are also GFOA members.

I had the chance to interview GFOA president Marc Gonzales last year. He’s been a long time member of ELGL. And, earlier this year, Ben interviewed incoming GFOA executive director and CEO Chris Morrill. Take a listen, and then follow the #GFOA2017 hashtag to see what’s happening in Denver.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Recent news

Close window