Using Technology to Meet the Needs of Today’s Job Seekers

Ebony Williams, Business Consultant for Middlesex County Workforce and Career Development, discussed how digital technology like mobile apps and text messaging tools can empower job seekers and streamline workforce development. Find the transcript and time stamps below.

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[00:00:00] Ebony Williams: My name is Ebony Williams. I am a business consultant with Middlesex County Office of Workforce and Career Development. I am with the business solutions team. So we're responsible for helping local businesses find talent, as well as, helping job seekers, find a job. Employment as well.

[00:00:23] Dave Asheim: Exactly. And you're a little new to the mobile side, right? In the last, what, six months or so you've taken this over?  

[00:00:32] Ebony Williams: Yeah. In the last six months or so, I've just started really honing in on it. I'm using it. I am right now. I'm the only one in my office that actually uses, engaged by cell, but there are other departments within middle six County that use engaged by cell.

[00:00:48] Dave Asheim: Excellent. Well, I think, we've got Anna, who's our head of marketing in the background here, kind of driving slides. I'll, introduce myself and then tell you about our company. My name is Dave. I started a company called engaged by sell about 17 years or so ago.

And, we provide, All kinds of mobile technology, text messaging, mobile websites, mapping, audio tours, a wide range of things. But one of my favorite, and I think the most interesting service we offer is the one that Ebony is going to talk about. It's all about how we can help. Anybody in the world of workforce development, whether that's veterans or youth or job seekers.

And I think you'll see in a second, we're going to share screens with Ebony and she's going to actually Show you how it works and everybody's going to be getting text messages and it's going to be very interactive We're also recording this session. So we will send you a copy of the slides, our contact info, and, the video of the session.

So we've got about two, 300 different clients. In workforce development, Ebony and I just, I guess, four weeks or so ago presented  

[00:02:09] Ebony Williams: we had a session at DECEDA, which is a workforce development conference here in New Jersey. It actually was my first one that I attended and I attended  as a speaker. And I'm still so grateful for Dave and engaged by cell team for the opportunity. It was really good. They had different sessions on different topics within workforce development. It was very engaging, very knowledgeable.  

[00:02:39] Dave Asheim: So many people came up to Ebony afterwards and said, Oh, I wasn't able to come or I have associates.

Then we said, well, let's just. Let's just do a webinar and we'll shorten the PowerPoint part and then we'll lengthen the demo part. So that's why we're here.  

[00:02:59] Dave Asheim: All right. When we look at all the technologies you folks can use, it's RingCentral, it's WhatsApp, it's email, that's robocalls.

There's a thousand different things that you can look at. And We thought we would just kind of lay out those choices. And then the next slide, we'll talk just a little bit about how do you even decide? And I think most of our clients say it's gotta be free. It can't be something like Facebook because not everybody's on Facebook and it's gotta be cheap.

Or the client, because none of you folks are going to want to spend 50, 000 for some software solution. There's no question. It's got to be inexpensive. So  

[00:03:47] Ebony Williams: the budget friendly,  

[00:03:48] Dave Asheim: but I'd like that budget friendly. It's got to be budget friendly, easy to. Access an update in Ebony, you'll show everybody how easy it is to make changes and to send things out.

So these were some of the criteria that most of our clients are looking at when they decide why I want to do a downloadable app, what, what is it exactly I want to do? And then the next slide, this slide here will kind of summarize what we've decided the best impact is find a text messaging company.

Of course, we would suggest us, but there are many out there, of course. And pick a company that also can provide a mobile website. Something that you folks probably are like, Ooh, I wonder what that means and why would that be important? But in a second, we'll, we'll have you scan a QR code and you'll see it.

So those are the two services that Ebony uses that all 300 of our clients use. Text messaging and then a mobile platform. Okay.  

[00:04:58] Ebony Williams: So I'll go into a little bit about Middlesex County, and who we are and what we do. The mission for the Department of Economic Development is to drive sustainable growth, nature, business, prosperity, and enhance the quality of life cultivating an ecosystem where opportunity, education, and creativity thrive.

A little bit about Middlesex County. We are in proximity to all the major transportation hubs, New York City, Boston, Connecticut, all of those places are pretty close to us. If you think about, Counties in New Jersey. We have a very diverse population. We have educational institutions within our county, such as Rutgers University.

We have Middlesex College, which is a community college here. We have Princeton University as well. And we see a lot of job seekers. They can be recent graduates seeking to season professionals looking to change it over, the type of work that they do. So we provide personalized support resources and trainings, we have different workshops career counseling and partnerships with local businesses as well as.

our partners on the state level, that we connect with often. And together, we're just trying to build a brighter future for everyone here in Middlesex County, as well as the clients that come in, that are seeking help and things of that sort.  

[00:06:30] Dave Asheim: It has to be one of the most diverse counties.  

[00:06:34] Ebony Williams: Yes, I  

[00:06:35] Dave Asheim: don't know in the country, you must have a million different ethnic populations,  

[00:06:40] Ebony Williams: very wealthy  

[00:06:41] Dave Asheim: people, very poor people, huge geographic area close to New York and Philly.

It's got everything in that county.  

[00:06:50] Ebony Williams: Yeah. And it's literally like an hour from everything. So an hour from Philly, an hour from New York. We see a lot of the population that come in is so diverse. We have people, that come often from Rutgers university, which is located in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

That's where our county office is actually located. And that's actually an underserved. town. So we have, it's, it's, it's crazy how we have, you know, underserved population as well as PHE's looking for work in this one city. So when we extend it out, we have a lot of people, a lot of diversity. That's one thing that I love about Middlesex County  

[00:07:30] Dave Asheim: All right, let's go to the next one. I know this was before your time, Ebony, but Tell us a little bit about the kinds of problems that you imagine is what, were on the table when Middlesex decided to go mobile and just give us a little highlight as to what were some of the issues that, that,  

[00:07:54] Ebony Williams: So the first and probably even my issue when I first started, two years ago, I was wondering, like, are these people getting my emails?

Are they getting the information that I'm sending out? And it would be like, to the point where I'm like, don't we have something that we can use as far as like text messages and things like that, because we had the platform, but they didn't really use it to its full extent. So one day I asked my manager and she was like, yeah, we do have it.

You know, we can use it. Let's. See how we can get you trained on it. And the one person that was here, she actually had retired. So she was the only person with access. So one day we reached out to engage by cell. One of their guys on the team actually came to New Jersey. They helped me, they had a one on one session to teach me how to run the backend of the site, how to send out the text messages, how to update the content on the website and all of the things.

And I feel like. That just helped me push my work ethic just above and beyond. I would know people were getting my text message and I would know this because they were, they were responding to the events, they were coming out to the events, so we had a lot of people, you know, responding back. So that's how I knew, like, it definitely benefited the team.

[00:09:25] Dave Asheim: Tell us a little bit about the conclusion, why folks would want to use texting versus more emails or more phone calls, other forms of communication, basically.  

[00:09:40] Ebony Williams: Yeah. So, you know, just as a day to day, as a individual, an adult, you're at work, and We're not talking about work emails here.

We're talking about personal emails. You don't check your emails all day long unless you're looking for something specific. So people, you could increase email, you could increase phone calls, but sometimes people don't answer it throughout the day. You could use a communication app such as WhatsApp, GroupMe, but then somebody would have to download the app, have space for it, and also create an account and then join a group.

So those are all things. That didn't add up. It didn't make sense if you wanted to get something out to the people to the job seekers as soon as possible. You need to send it, you know, what better way to reach them, then a text messages. And also we send text messages around certain times.

What better way to send it during the lunch break 1230 12 o'clock. You know, where people have more time to freely look at their phones, you can use social media. But again, If you're not on, Facebook in our group or something like that, you're not going to see it. So just the overall, conclusion of using the text messages, it came really quick.

Like you can see, in the display, East Brunswick Public Schools is seeking candidates for multiple staff roles. Apply now by visiting the link. I created that text message. I sent it out. If there were job seekers that, were interested, they would click the link, apply for the role, and there you have it.

[00:11:20] Dave Asheim: I'll talk a little bit about this. For text messaging, messaging to work, all of you need to find some provider. I said, we are one of the big ones in workforce development. There are plenty around the country that don't focus on that, but are still text message companies. Once you sign up with someone like us.

Then you fill out a little digital paperwork and then the phone companies will give you your own 10 digit phone number with your own personal area code. And then we would train you how to use the dashboard, which Ebony is going to show you in just a second. You could then send text messages. Two groups of people, two or five or 2000, or you can do one on one text messages.

A lot of our clients are using that for kind of caseworkers and then individual people can text stop. And then they're out of the list. So you don't have to worry about taking people out that don't want to get text

on this one, Ebony, what are some of the reasons you would use like a mobile site versus sending direct mail or apps?  

[00:12:37] Ebony Williams: So solving low attendance at our events and retention of materials. We don't want to increase the direct mail. You know, you send things, sometimes the postal service may not get it there until after the event.

We can make copies and put them out for, job seekers that come into our one stop center. But again, they may see it, they'll scan it, it'll end up in their trunk, end up under the seat, the kids are coloring on the back of it, it's something they're not going to come back to. Again, we may have a downloadable app.

What's that? Some people, again, don't have space. We're talking about real life things here. I mean, for me, I don't have that much space on my phone, I have pictures, I have music, I have all of the things. So. If I wanted to look for a job, I don't want to have to download an app. Or if I wanted to attend an event, I don't want to have to download an app.

And for your current website, like, everybody has a gov that they are, using, and we do have MiddlesexCounty. gov. However, to put information on our website, you have to go through communications, you have to go through IT, you have to go through marketing, you have to. Give them a timeframe and what you want to have it.

If you have something, a flyer from a company that is hiring and they're hiring immediately and they're asking, Oh, we need to fill five roles by a certain time period. Maybe we can just send a text message out from them, or maybe we can just post their flyer on our mobile site. So the mobile site is really convenient for popping in and taking down.

Events that are happening, jobs that are looking for employees. more so just workforce development related things where you can pop in and pop out, especially if they have deadlines or things of that sort.  

[00:14:34] Dave Asheim: Yeah. I think those of us that don't work for a government agency, forget to add a new page of content.

On a county website is not the easiest thing in the world.  

[00:14:45] Ebony Williams: have to go through a lot of people, and you have to give them timeframes. We may have an event that we're helping push for, next week. We may not get approval until next week.  

[00:14:58] Dave Asheim: Yeah. And with the mobile site, you just load it yourself, send a text out with a link to the job fair and you're done.

[00:15:06] Ebony Williams: Yes.  

[00:15:07] Dave Asheim: All right. Everybody take out your phone and open up your camera and scan that code. You'll get a little pop up and you'll end up on the Middlesex site and feel free. You can bookmark that you can play with it.

In the chat window, you folks let us know if a, if a popped up for you. and play around and feel free to ask us questions as we're going to show you the dashboard and back end. Let us know, did that QR code popped up? Thanks, Deanna. Okay, great. let's do the next slide. Great, Patty got it. So how does this mobile app work?

We provide the platform and then the client, someone like Ebony, would just add her content You don't need, Ebony, you're not an HTML programmer, Java programmer,  

[00:16:20] Ebony Williams: not a coder,  

[00:16:21] Dave Asheim: not a coder,  

[00:16:23] Ebony Williams: not a developer,  

[00:16:24] Dave Asheim: and you can do this.  

[00:16:25] Ebony Williams: My background is public administration. So trust me,  

[00:16:32] Dave Asheim: So we built this so that it's a drag and drop kind of way to, to add content.

Okay, so let's stop sharing this. Anna. And we'll let, Ebony take over and share the dashboard. And I think she's going to first just show you how she's using text messaging. And you said you had a big job fair a week or two ago, I think. And you sent out a couple thousand texts every day or two, just to remind people about it.

[00:17:03] Ebony Williams: Yes.  

[00:17:04] Dave Asheim: Yup.  

[00:17:05] Ebony Williams: Okay, I'm going to move this down so I can get it out the way. So this is the back end. I'm going to go to the mobile site first so you can see. This is like a preview on the cell phone of what it looks like. I can click here hiring events.

And I actually purposely left this up because this event here actually happened a few days ago. So I want to take this down. Although it says see details here, it's just a link to their website. So I can keep it up if I wanted to, but I can take it down. So I'll just go into hiring events. That's where it's located at.

And I can either just erase it and implement it with something else, which I'm going to, or I can simply go in and turn it off. So, if it's something that's reoccurring or something you just need to change a date, you can turn it on and off.

Where clients in real time, if you guys refresh the page, you'll see that it's going to be missing because I turned it off. So then I can just turn it back on and there it is. So this is like kind of how we update things here. I had an event last week on the 13th that was here. So when they clicked in, it will take them to the registration form, which is not active anymore.

So I didn't delete it. I just went in and I turned it off.  

[00:18:44] Dave Asheim: How many, what are some of these icons that you use and how would you add? You know, if you wanted to add a sentence underneath other hiring events, how do you use these tools?  

[00:18:56] Ebony Williams: So I just hit text, like they have different things that you can use.

So we'll have text, image carousel. I was just finishing up the job fair, but I'm working on, adding some flyers from different employers to put it in a carousel. So I can put the images there and the job seekers can just slide through to see what's hiring.

You can add files, you can add maps, there's buttons, there's super quiz, quiz, polls, selfie.  

[00:19:26] Dave Asheim: Take pictures of documents.  

[00:19:28] Ebony Williams: Yes, take pictures of the documents. We don't quite use that on my end in my department, but we are going to have the case managers actually have that tool to use as well.

So if I wanted to add something, Let's see text underneath, hiring event. I can just go here and this is live showing you guys live. So you should be able to see it. After I save it, let's do background save and you see how it's, it's here. I can just go here or I can say, you know, and then I can go back in it.

And edit it, stay tuned, stay tuned

for future events, save, and they'll see that. if I don't want that to be there, I can just turn it off. So that's a little bit how the mobile site works on the back end. If I do want some increased help with that, I can get some help from marketing because they do have a password and stuff they can go in, and then I can, you wanted me to show them a text message to correct.

[00:20:49] Dave Asheim: Yeah, let's show them what you've been sending out  

Right. No, we need to do that but I can do that in just a second.  

[00:20:55] Ebony Williams: Okay, so here is the text message, portion, okay, internet. Let's go to outbound text history.

So these are just some of the text messages, that I have sent out recently here. This is when I first sent out information regarding my veteran's job fair. As you can see, I sent it out October 25th. I send it out towards the end of the day. I wanted to play around with a few different times.

Usually I send things out 12 o'clock in the afternoon, the end of the day, sometimes during the evening time, and those are scheduled text Messages. So this one, are you or a friend looking for new employment, then come attend our annual veterans job fair November 13 2024 register here.

And again, that was the link to the registration form. I sent it out to a list of contacts. that I have, which went out to Workforce New Jersey Workforce, and Workforce Contacts. And these were the total amount of people that I sent it to was 1, 600. And again, the text message they send out fairly quick.

They don't take, like, you don't have to sit and wait for it to send out. They send out in a couple minutes. And I'm also on the list, so I know once I get it. It's out there. The next time I send it out, maybe a week before and I let them know we are one week away from our job fair. Join us on Wednesday, 11 13.

And you can play around with the text messages, the messages that you want to send. And then I also send it the day before. So I send it a week, two weeks and the day before. some people may forget so I have the opportunity to, catch the last bit of people that want to register.

And these are the links, the unique link clicks, these are people that actually clicked on the link. Soon as they got the text. So it's a fairly good number and we had a good turnout for our registration. So that, definitely crediting to, engaged by cell.  

[00:23:11] Dave Asheim: I mean, when you think about it, you got 230, 370, 232 and 25, six, 79.

You got a thousand. People clicking the link.  

[00:23:25] Ebony Williams: Yeah.  

[00:23:25] Dave Asheim: That's a lot of clicks when you think if you send an email, 20%, might even look at the thing.  

[00:23:34] Ebony Williams: Right. So those are, just a set of clicks. Text messages that I've sent out recently. Me and Dave did have the session down. So we were, testing a lot of these out.

[00:23:47] Dave Asheim: You  

[00:23:48] Ebony Williams: see, we have workshops, graduations, just different things that we are able to send out. Another job fair, financial Fridays.  

[00:23:58] Dave Asheim: The great thing is, is Ebony is not using her personal phone here. It's all done through the cloud based platform.

Right. Yeah. And so she's not, you know, there's no personal taking my phone out, sending a text. If she wants to send a text to two people or 2000 people, she just logs in and does it, and we'll do that in just a second.  

[00:24:19] Ebony Williams: Right. And then also I was looking at the chat. So yes, they are going to their personal, phone numbers, and this is where you have to get the people to subscribe.

I use, our phone number, always using our tagline Workforce. Please text, if you want to know about our next event, you want to know what we have going on, where can you catch great events like this, text the word workforce to our 732 978 9211. And once they do that, they're locked in, and they're subscribed, any event that I have going on.

Yes, I will have an email blast go out, but I'll also have the text message list go out and on the email blast, I'm making sure, once people are registered, reminding them, Hey, text workforce to this number so you can stay up to date with all the updates and future things that we have going on.

[00:25:18] Dave Asheim: And a lot  

[00:25:18] Ebony Williams: of time that works.  

[00:25:20] Dave Asheim: Yeah,  

[00:25:21] Ebony Williams: if you use that tagline in all of your contacts with your clients.  

[00:25:27] Dave Asheim: Ebony if you stop sharing and is going to put the QR code up for the text.  

Okay.  

[00:25:35] Dave Asheim: We want everybody to scan this and Ebony explain why we're all job seekers and why we want to do this.

[00:25:43] Ebony Williams: So again, If you scan that you'll get access to everything that we have going on things that I'm sending out events that we have happening. I may just send out a text and say, hey, check out our mobile site. Check out all of the employers that are hiring.

So that way they're able to see what's out there  

[00:26:07] Dave Asheim: or a survey or a poll.  

[00:26:09] Ebony Williams: Yeah.  

[00:26:10] Dave Asheim: And by the way, we will delete all of your phone numbers from that list at the end. But for today, scan that and it'll open up text messaging and then you hit send and you'll get back, thanks for joining our presentation. And, in fact, now, Anna, you can stop.

Sharing and ebony I'll take over.  

[00:26:32] Ebony Williams: Okay.  

and we can send those three or four or five that Anna created. So then I'll go here and I'll go to schedule message. So these are All text messages that you can set up to be sent out.

So if you know you have an event coming, you can just do that ahead of time. So if you're like, for me, I'm one person that uses this if I have something that needs to go out. What I will do is I'll just schedule it ahead of time on the day where I'm not so busy. And then a couple days later, I'm like, Oh, my text message went out because it was already scheduled.

So I'm going to just send you guys a text message. If you have subscribed to the list, I'm going to send you a text message right now.

Yep. Okay.

And this is an old text, hack attack. Marie M health has a hiring event going on, click the link. I can also send another one.

Wait a second.

[00:28:19] Dave Asheim: Oh, the one send it to the send now to subscribers to the left. Yeah, right down.  

[00:28:25] Ebony Williams: Oh, Okay. I'm like, where is it not going?  

[00:28:27] Dave Asheim: Yeah, that's it.  

[00:28:29] Ebony Williams: Okay, this one.

I think it's sent.

[00:28:40] Dave Asheim: So as many as you want to schedule in advance, they'll just go out at a certain time.  

[00:28:46] Ebony Williams: Yeah, or you can come to, skin and send scheduled text message.  

[00:28:55] Dave Asheim: Right.  

I think the site is just a little slow. Ebony, Deanna's got a question for you about how time consuming is this?

[00:29:07] Ebony Williams: It's not time consuming at all. I think I use guide by cell one to two times a week, depending on if we have an event or not. for me, I do have a lot of tasks and I just schedule time in my calendar. Hey, update guide by cell.

So it's not like, it's super time consuming. You don't need 10 people in the office on it. Even if you have one or two people, that's fine. Or if you have one person, that's fine as well.  

[00:29:40] Dave Asheim: And you're currently sending out emails to the people on your list.

So this is just one more step, right?  

[00:29:46] Ebony Williams: additional step. Sometimes we look to our state partners to send out blasts as well. So that's just an additional thing that I do to try and get more contact. Gov delivery they use. I've never heard of gov delivery.  

[00:30:04] Dave Asheim: No, I haven't either.

[00:30:07] Ebony Williams: So again, if you want to schedule a text or write a text, you can, do that as well.

You can label it. So that way, you know what it is.

And here is where you send to a list and you can choose the because all of your contacts should be, wherever you put them. So we have different lists. So I'm going to send to the webinar that we have and it'll show you the count. On schedule. And I can just say, send now.  

[00:30:55] Dave Asheim: Just got it.  

Yeah. So if you have something urgent that you need to go out, you can just send it out or you can schedule it. Super. Any more questions on kind of what you're seeing everybody, this dashboard for either the mobile site or the texting. We've got a few marketing examples that Ebony has created.

We thought we would share with you. All right, Anna, why don't you, tell us about how you market this.  

[00:31:40] Ebony Williams: So these are different, marketing examples that we can either add to our emails. We leave it down by our signature or sometimes I just type it out like that. This is actually an email that I, send out often to new job seekers, for future updates, text workforce to the number, and follow us on LinkedIn.

[00:31:59] Dave Asheim: I put the phone number and they're able to, see and text it. Do you use your personal cell phones? it's not a cell phone that I'm sending the text messages out from. So I don't use my personal cell phones for anything with engaged by cell. It's a website. Yeah. our system connects through the phone companies. So when Ebony sent that out by typing it, it goes to the carriers and then shoots it out as a text. To the individuals that have asked to be on that list.  

[00:32:36] Ebony Williams: Yes. So nothing is used with personal, So we don't have to scan the QR code.

You can just send a regular text message as well from your phone. You can text workforce to, 732 978 9211 or you can scan the QR code. So it's totally up to the job seeker. You don't have to use the QR code. You can just actually send a regular text message as well.

[00:33:03] Dave Asheim: Good question. We're nearing the end. What other questions do you have for Ebony. And what do you folks think that are on the call? Do you think your audience would appreciate getting text, especially if they voluntarily sign up to get them?  

[00:33:23] Ebony Williams: Also, you're not. Spamming them. If it's an event going on, I sent max three texts for one event.

Yes. It's very useful for people who don't respond to email or phone calls. I think it gets to the point, Oh, this is why they were calling me.  

[00:33:46] Dave Asheim: So you don't want to give up what you're doing, but it's going to supplement like, Oh, you might have received an email from us, but here's the link to the job fair registration or whatever it happens to be kind of reinforces those things.

[00:34:04] Ebony Williams: Right.  

[00:34:06] Dave Asheim: Yeah. We will email everybody, Ebony's contact info and mine too, and, feel free to reach out and ask questions. But we sure appreciate everybody joining us today and Ebony, thanks so much for your, webinar. I think people just really enjoy hearing from a user how they use new technology.

[00:34:29] Ebony Williams: Yes. Thank you  

[00:34:30] Dave Asheim: We are staying on. If you have a question, Rashima, thank you.

[00:34:42] Ebony Williams: You're welcome.  

[00:34:43] Dave Asheim: All right. Thanks, Patty. Excellent. All right, well, we'll stay here. If anybody has a question that comes up in the next minute or so, but thank you so much for participating.  

[00:34:57] Ebony Williams: Oh, Dave. Someone asked, how can we find out about pricing plans?  

[00:35:01] Dave Asheim: Deanna put your email in the little chat.

And we'll send you a price sheet later this afternoon.

All right. Got it. Well, Ebony, thank you so much. And thanks for all the rest of you folks that are signing off. Really appreciated all the, insight and, we will stay in touch and see you soon.

All right, everybody. We'll send you the transcript, probably in the morning. Thanks again. Bye.

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