Google Executive Tries to Match Presidential Campaign Workers With Employers
17 December 2016 - 8:10AM
Dow Jones News
By Natalie Andews and Nikki Waller
A Google Inc. executive has enlisted roughly 100 employers,
including Facebook Inc. and Netflix Inc., in an effort to find work
for campaign staffers left jobless after Election Day.
Laszlo Bock, the search giant's departing human-resources chief,
is leading a push to gather résumés from campaign staffers and
employees leaving the White House so that employers can consider
them for open jobs, according to a person familiar with the
matter.
The online résumé bank is among a handful of initiatives to find
jobs for people who worked on 2016 presidential campaigns, as well
as White House staff who will be seeking other employment in
January. Most efforts are focused on Hillary for America staffers,
many of whom had planned to continue careers in Washington, D.C.,
as part of a Clinton administration.
In an email sent to employers and reviewed by The Wall Street
Journal, Mr. Bock said he was compiling an online résumé bank for
members of the campaign and transition teams, and invited employers
to review résumés.
"800 remarkable, civically-minded people lost their jobs" after
Election Day, he wrote, an apparent reference to the Clinton
campaign, which employed roughly 800 staffers.
Employers who want access to the résumé bank must agree to
review all résumés -- 1,300 have been posted so far, mostly from
people who worked for Mrs. Clinton's campaign -- against their
organization's open jobs, said the person familiar with the matter.
The bank is open to workers from all campaigns.
In the email, Mr. Bock urged employers to find a fit for
nontraditional candidates, similar to a recruiting team he
established at Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., that found roles
for "people who were clearly talented but didn't fit a conventional
mold."
After campaigns conclude, there is rarely a set path --
especially for the losing side. The winners often go to the White
House or form new companies of their own. Teddy Goff, Barack
Obama's 2012 campaign digital director, along with a pair of that
campaign's tech staffers, founded Precision Strategies, a tech and
consulting firm aimed at helping progressive causes. Brad Parscale,
digital director for President-elect Donald Trump, is helping with
his transition to the White House and is a regular in Trump
Tower.
Soon after Mrs. Clinton's defeat, high-level campaign staff
mobilized to connect companies interested in recruiting tech
staffers, even holding a job fair in Brooklyn, N.Y., with tech
companies and staff about to face unemployment. Venture-capital
firm Union Square Ventures sent a representative to headquarters
the week of the election to recruit tech, web and design staff for
its portfolio of companies, which includes Duolingo, a
language-learning app, and Clue, a health-tracking app.
"You rarely find a large talent pool like that all available at
the same time," said partner Fred Wilson of the Clinton workers.
"These are people who dropped what they were doing and joined a
cause. That speaks to who they are and what they value."
Google confirmed that it sent staff to the fair, as did Teachers
Pay Teachers, a web community for educators. Hustle, a
text-messaging app that works with progressive groups and sent
millions of texts for the campaign, pitched employees via video
call, co-founder Roddy Lindsay said.
About 45 former tech staff from Mrs. Clinton's campaign team
visited the New York Times on Nov. 17 for a networking event with
members of the paper's tech and recruiting teams, according to a
spokeswoman for the paper.
Logan Anderson worked for the Clinton campaign's digital content
team after posting a photo to Twitter that showed the campaign logo
on her graduation mortar board the day before leaving Louisiana
State University.
The 23-year-old started job hunting after the election, unsure
where she will head next. Her inbox has been full of job listings
and offers of introductions and résumé help from former co-workers,
she said.
"There have been small moments that make me feel really
confident that this team of people is working on my behalf."
Write to Natalie Andrews at Natalie.Andrews@wsj.com and Nikki
Waller at Nikki.Waller@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 16, 2016 15:55 ET (20:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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