All Over Albany

Gannon's List

Project: Gannon's List, a service to find the region's best jobs from the best companies and send them to the best candidates.

Who: Peter Gannon

Short bio
Peter Gannon is a lifelong resident of New York's Capital Region. He was appointed president by the Board of Directors of the Arsenal Partnership in June 2010. Prior to joining the Partnership, he served as Director of Operations in the Town of Colonie and Director of Communications to Assembly Majority Leader Ron Canestrari.

Peter earned his undergraduate degree in public communications from the College of St. Rose and his MBA from the Lally School at RPI. He was a member of the inaugural class of the Leadership Tech Valley and, in 2011, was named one of the Business Review's Forty Under 40. He is active in various community organizations and served as Chair of the 2015 & 2016 Friendship Walk for Best Buddies raising over $200,000. He is the founder of the Thomas Hartnett Memorial Golf Outing that has raised over $100,000 for Watervliet Schools and other local organizations -- including the McNulty Center for Veteran Entrepreneurial Activity which he created in 2014 to help Veterans realize the dream of small business ownership.

In addition, he works as a member of the adjunct faculty at Schenectady County Community College.

In 2017, he created Gannon's List as a way to connect the region's top candidates with the region's top employers. Through his own experience and the experiences of friends he has seen the monumental task of a job search get increasingly more difficult. That's why he is creating a hub for job seekers and hirers with one goal in mind: simplicity.

A description of the proposed project
Regardless of where you search, finding a job has become a maddening experience. Each Sunday you can open the paper and there is a short supply of positions. Yet, you open Monday's paper and there you find the headshots of dozens of people just like you who just got the job you want.

Gannon's List has operated for 7 weeks utilizing the network of our team to find the region's best jobs, from the best companies and sending them to the best candidates.

Using the power of email marketing and social media we have engaged an audience and even had our users get hired by our employers. An email is limited in its reach with the biggest limit being subscription and the next being open rates that universally hover around 15%.

To take the next step we need an anchor presence on the web and, of course, I'm talking about Gannonslist.com. A permanent web presence will help sustain the interest in the job postings and its critical to analytically demonstrate the reach of the site that will convince employers to list their best jobs with us.

The project is providing a community benefit by connecting job seekers to the employment opportunities they may never see here in the Capital Region. As the grantors, you understandably want to fund projects that will have a sustainable impact in the region and this project has potential to deliver exponential returns.

The screenshot above [click for a larger version] is the Gannon's List e-blast from August 30, 2017. As you can see it's intentionally simple and a user could scroll all the way through the list of 100 jobs. A permanent web anchor would allow these jobs to be listed chronologically, by company, by city and by sector and many other categories. We'd have capability for employers to post (instead of email) and we would have the capability to conduct e-commerce.

How would the grant money help?
We have explored several options for development of the website including web development contractors, white label job board platforms and developing the site in house. For a number of reasons, we will outsource the creation of the website.

Quotes for development of Gannon's List:

Option A - Word Press structure with limited features ($2,500.00)

Option B - Custom infrastructure with advanced features ($15,000.00)

We are moving forward with Option A and would propose utilizing the entire grant for this project. Option B will be developed in years 2-3.