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Comment by RBBronson123 | Hacker News Reader

You are so right on all your comments. Soon we'll be re-doing the entire site. Perhaps we can talk in several weeks?

I'd add that framing the hiring decision as charity ("giving someone a second chance") could be improved. I'd go for more of a "diamond in the rough" angle.

"Find talent everyone else is missing."

From personal experience, this has been the most effective pitch. Selling yourself as a potential high value deal based on "below market rents".

Thank you for this great message. It so simply expresses a very basic, affirmative goal to which we aspire. With your permission, I will incorporate it into our site's narrative.

Of course!

That's an incredible tagline

This tagline is excellent. OP, seriously consider it!

Once knew a guy online that had done something stupid when he was a teenager. He was a big, scruffy guy and altogether would've been a hard sell to an employer. But he was exceptionally smart and funny - would make a great colleague - and I bet many employers would've overlooked him.

This should be the site's tagline!

Absolutely, I think many people would be surprised about the quantity of highly-educated, high-experienced, highly-talented felons there are in our society that are exactly just that, "Diamonds in the rough."

Fantastic suggestions for these folks!

agreed!

Was that tagline from Hamilton, or no?

Agreed. Brilliant tagline.

Also, please reconsider your decision to feature Google and Facebook as prominently as "featured employers". If it's for security, maintenance, and janitorial work, it's more practical to list the agencies that they hire temps from. Otherwise, look no further than nearby East Palo Alto and one will find that neither company particularly cares about rehabilitating ex-offenders or people from at-risk communities for any type of technical employment.

The general rule with Silicon Valley and San Francisco companies is to take everything they say in public or through their carefully worded P.R. with a grain of salt, and actually find out first hand if they practice what they preach hiring outliers with respect to diversity, records/credit/etc, non-Ivy League degrees, etc.

Thanks for the good advice. I'm learning fast. But I have found some truly righteous people here, so I remain hopeful.

In line with that, I think you could also put up a blog section for testimonials, in the near future. IMHO, People need to read stories of how 70million Jobs has helped successful candidates, as that will build confidence in the system.

I'd also get testimonials from employers too: "70MillionJobs helped us XYZ"

In line with advertising success of employers, do any states off employers incentives to hire convicted felons? Tax breaks or similar? If so, advertising this advantage may help. This approach is used by some governments but I'm unfamiliar with what happens in the US, and have really only seen depressing stories previously. Edit: tax breaks are mentioned, found it. It's attractive to employers so it's good it's there.

>do any states off employers incentives to hire convicted felons

Some do, yes. I shared an office who hired ex-cons who got a huge rebate on wages in our municipality (up to 55%). He had 2 or 3 doing office work. Very pleasant people, not that large of an applicant pool however. If we had been hiring at the time (bootstrapping), I would have definitely taken advantage.

Part of our plans. Thanks for the good suggestion

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