No one’s stopping. Microsoft’s not stopping. Facebook’s not stopping. Indeed’s not stopping. And no, Google’s not stopping either. Announced today, the company is upgrading its Hire product with a focus on artificial intelligence.
With the launch of Hire last year, Google put the applicant tracking space on notice. Although the initial product was lacking, anyone who has watched Google over the years knew the product would evolve, assuming the company was serious and not just throwing spaghetti at the wall, like forlorn Base in the ’00s.
If Google could iterate and effectively integrate Hire into popular everyday tools such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and other G Suite apps for businesses, it meant it was well on its way to seriously competing with well-established players in the ATS market. Such an offering would mean managing applicants could exist on a singular platform.
With the launch of three new features, Google continues to show just how serious it is about employment.
“When we measured user activity, we found Hire reduced time spent completing common recruiting tasks — like reviewing applications or scheduling interviews — by up to 84 percent,” Google said in a blog post. “But we wanted to do more.
“The result is our latest release of Hire. By incorporating Google AI, Hire now reduces repetitive, time-consuming tasks, like scheduling interviews, into one-click interactions. This means hiring teams can spend less time with logistics and more time connecting with people.”
Here’s a breakdown of Hire’s three new features:
Smart Interview Scheduling
Recruiters and recruiting coordinators spend a lot of time managing interview logistics, such as finding available time on calendars, booking rooms, and pulling together the right information to prep interviewers. To help streamline this process, Hire now automatically suggests interviewers and ideal time slots.
If an interviewer cancels last minute, Hire will alert users, as well as recommend available replacement interviewers and send them an invite. “This means hiring teams can invest time in preparing for interviews and building relationships with candidates instead of scheduling rooms and checking calendars,” Google said.
Auto-Highlight Resumes
Recruiters spend a lot of their time reviewing resumes. By watching users interact with the product, Google found employers were constantly using “Ctrl+F” to search resumes and highlight keyphrases. Google targeted this as a repetitive, manual task that could easily be automated. Integrating its AI technology, Hire now automatically analyzes the terms in a job description or search query and auto-highlights them on resumes, including synonyms and acronyms.
Click-to-call Candidates
Recruiters typically have dozens of phone conversations each day with prospects and candidates. This means spending a lot of time searching for phone numbers or logging notes.
Google Hire has added click-to-call functionality to try and solve this time waster. Hire now automatically logs calls so recruiting teams know who has spoken with a candidate.
“There’s a huge opportunity for technology and AI specifically — to help people work faster and therefore focus on people-centric tasks,” Google added. “Ultimately, that’s what Hire is all about, and the functionality we’re adding today demonstrates our commitment to help companies focus on people and build their best teams.”
As recruiting becomes more automated and smarter, it’s becoming clear the technology solutions with the bigger brains, deeper resources and broader reach are in the catbird seat to own the future. That is, companies like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook are now driving the bus.
Deep integration into technologies that so many people already use daily, such as Gmail and Google Calendar, must drive traditional recruiting technology solutions crazy. Build all the Chrome extensions you want, but nothing’s ever going to be better than the stuff Google has baked itself. Just wait till it starts throwing Duplex into the mix.