So far this year, there have been 17 school shootings — nearly 2 shootings a week. The NRA and #NeverAgain movements are locked in a battle royale; caught in the middle, political and corporate alliances are shifting as we speak. It’s hard to know what’ll happen in the end, but we’re starting to see its effects already—

After last month’s Parkland shooting, hiring for gun-related jobs has surged +79% above last year’s baseline. You can practically see the #NeverAgain movement rallying its forces, schools and cities hiring more police officers, and others getting more gun permits and buying more guns.

“A Good Guy With a Gun”

The NRA argues that only “a good guy with a gun” can stop a bad guy with a gun. (In yesterday’s school shooting, a good guy with a gun prevented a far worse tragedy.) Regardless of whether you agree with the NRA, the reality is this: after big school shootings, Americans want to add more guns — 89% of gun-related hiring in the past 2 months increased the number of guns, either directly or indirectly.

What does that mean? Here are some (representative) folks who were recently hiring:

Armed Protection Officer, Bingo Hall — 95 Bravo Protection Services

Grassroots Spring Intern — National Rifle Association

Regional Police Officer — Cleveland Clinic

Retail Firearms Lead Outfitter — Cabela’s

In the aftermath of every big school shooting, you can practically see gun retailers hiring more outfitters, gun lobbies gearing up for a fight, and schools and hospitals hiring more police officers.

#NeverAgain

On the other hand, the Parkland survivors point to their school resource officer who stood outside for ~30 minutes while kids died inside. They’re demanding gun reform — doing TV interviews, staging nationwide walkouts, launching pressure campaigns and generally raising hell to make it happen.

They’re badly out-numbered and out-moneyed: in the last 2 months, for every gun reform person that was hired, 9 others were hired that increased access to guns.

However, what #NeverAgain lacks in numbers, they make up in broad, grassroots support. While the 5 biggest pro-gun employers hired 61% of new employees promoting gun access (e.g. big retailers), the 5 biggest anti-gun employers hired just 32% of people promoting gun control (e.g. community non-profits).

For instance, here are some (representative) folks who were hiring recently:

Campaign Associate, Guns and Crime — American Progress

Crew Leader, READI Chicago — Heartland Alliance

Program Coordinator — Sandy Hook Promise

What Does This Mean?

Jobs are fundamental part of our lives: they’re our livelihoods, sure, but they’re also a reflection of our priorities. Here, you can see two things happening:

Big school shootings (Parkland last month and San Bernadino last year) have a clear impact on people. They start buying more guns and asking for more law enforcement and private security to protect their loved ones.

and private security to protect their loved ones. At the same time, people want fewer guns and stronger communities: they start donating to community organizations and lobbying for gun reform.

My takeaway: People care. Specifically, they care in two ways:

You may not agree with their opinion, but they care enough to have one — and that’s 80% of the battle, in my opinion. They care about making their communities stronger and safer. And they care enough to put their money where their mouth is, from hiring more security to buying more guns to donating to community non-profits.

How Can We Help?

Do you want to do something to prevent future school shootings? Whether you’re an experienced gun enthusiast, newfound social activist or aspiring first responder, you can do something.

And we can help. We’re a mission-driven company and, as far as I see it, it’s our job to get you the job you deserve. Getting a job these days is hard, but finding a job that balances your personal mission and practical needs is especially hard. Sign up for TalentWorks and email your TalentAdvocate with what you need. We’ll do everything we can for you!

FAQ

Why should we trust you? TalentWorks indexes ~6 million jobs per month to help our users get the job they deserve. On average, TalentWorks subscribers get a 5.8x hireability boost over the competition and 90% of TalentWorks subscribers get an interview in 60 days or less. We understand jobs.

TalentWorks indexes ~6 million jobs per month to help our users get the job they deserve. On average, over the competition and We understand jobs. How’d you calculate this? Please tell me all the boring, technical details. We extracted a random sample of 25,000 jobs that mentioned the word “gun” from our index of ~91 million job postings. We then classified each posting as “pro-gun”, “anti-gun” or “other” based on company, posting text and job title. (You’d be surprised how many job postings refer to “nerf gun fights.” Bored yet?) Finally, we controlled for seasonality and indexability and plotted against school shootings from Wikipedia. All of this was done in Python using pandas, sklearn and bokeh.

We extracted a random sample of 25,000 jobs that mentioned the word “gun” from our index of ~91 million job postings. We then classified each posting as “pro-gun”, “anti-gun” or “other” based on company, posting text and job title. (You’d be surprised how many job postings refer to “nerf gun fights.” Bored yet?) Finally, we controlled for seasonality and indexability and plotted against school shootings from Wikipedia. All of this was done in Python using pandas, sklearn and bokeh. What does this all (really) mean? You tell me. I’m a hard-headed idealist, so here’s how I choose to interpret the above: People care. You might not agree with their opinions, but they care enough to have one. And everyone (with their different opinions) is doing what they can to make a difference. It’s a start.

Why Are We Doing This?

With ApplicationAssistant, we can boost the average job-seeker’s hireability by ~5.8x. But, what makes ApplicationAssistant work has been an internal company secret until now. We’re fundamentally a mission-driven company and we believe we can help more people by sharing our knowledge. So, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Creative Commons

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