Google Enters the Hiring Fray

It looks like Google was serious about entering the jobs space.

The Google Hire website appeared this month, and while it hasn’t been officially announced, the world’s largest data aggregator could be gearing up to launch an application tracking website which could rival LinkedIn, Greenhouse and Jobvite.

While this new website seems to be still in early stages of development, you can’t help but wonder: how is this new technology going to affect the jobs and recruiting space?

It makes perfect sense that both Facebook and Google would actively seek to gain control of a larger chunk of the jobs market. These platforms are already a definitive part of many people’s daily lives, so it is not surprising that they want to play an increasingly important role in the job search process. As we know, there are enormous possibilities where there are lots of people, and Facebook and Google have their markets comfortably cornered. Why go elsewhere when you’re looking for your next position?

So: how are they going about it?

Google, with the relatively recent introduction of their Cloud Jobs API, looks set to make a big impact, as their latest algorithms and intelligent data interpretation solutions set out to bridge the gaps between employers and job seekers in an unprecedented way: carefully matching the skills, experience and personal preferences of job seekers with the title, position, description and expectations of employees advertising specific job opportunities.

The Cloud Jobs API also has the ability to define the importance and level of various skills, as well as put such skills into the right context, in relation to any particular job requirement or opening available.

This happens through the use of various proprietary ontologies, which are meant to encode insights and information about different skills and occupations, as well shedding light on how such skills interact and correlate with each other. In short? Google will gather and assess your jobs data and match you with appropriate openings. Conversely, recruiters could potentially find perfect matches with pinpoint accuracy.

Interestingly, Google Hire openings have been listed on the bebop website, the VMware enterprise application development platform Google acquired in 2015. VMware’s cofounder, Diane Green was appointed to lead Google’s cloud push efforts that same year.

For Friendships Or Job Searches?

When I look at my Facebook feed, I’ll often see my friends using their status update to ask their network for job openings.  Now, Facebook has confirmed it had begun experimenting with recruiting features: “We’re running a test for Page admins to create job postings and receive applications from candidates.” The company is also actively investing more in functionality for recruiters and employers, giving them the ability to share job opportunities that are specifically visible to an audience that matches their standards (for example, the level of education required).

From a recruiter’s standpoint, Facebook is a goldmine, because it is such a huge repository of information about people. Individuals share a wide variety of data about themselves on their social media, from their basic information to their education level, their current employment, and their personal interests. If you want to gain an exhaustive profile of a candidate, you can’t do much better than Facebook.

As Facebook is already a definitive part of our daily lives, it’s not surprising that it could play an important role in the job searching industry. But do they run the same risks as platforms such as LinkedIn, where personal information becomes more curated to attract a certain job? Will people be pumping up their own profiles, not always accurately? The beauty of Facebook’s “raw and real” data may be quickly lost once people know recruiters are able to mine their information.

As both Facebook and Google enter the space, it confirms yet again that the rate of developments in our space is blinding, and that the new year might bring a few more tricks to learn yet.

About the Author:

Megan Flamer is an organizational development specialist who is fascinated by how people find and interact with their work and each other. She writes about recruitment, HR, human behaviour, and the future of work at 1-Page.com

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