My Career Fit Turns Alexa and Google Assistant into Personalized Employment Agencies
Voice assistants are not a standard tool for finding and applying to jobs, but experiments by companies like McDonald’s hint at a future where voice assistants connect employers and job-seekers. The potential for voice as a recruitment tool inspired veteran job recruiter Gordon Collier to develop My Career Fit, a voice app for connecting employers and people looking for a job.
Voice-First Employment
“I’ve been in the recruiting industry for 20-plus years, currently as CEO of Pipeline Search Solutions, and the biggest challenge in recruitment is the fight for attention from job seekers and folks not necessarily looking for a new job,” Collier said in an interview with Voicebot. “My Career Fit is another channel for finding a job using a voice assistant. We provide job-seekers the opportunity to hear directly from employers.”
My Career Fit operates much like a job board online, only tailored for voice assistants. Once the app is enabled on Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, users can ask about jobs available based on location, relevant skills, or the name of the company. The app will then pull an audio file of the hiring manager or a different senior employee from the company to describe the job in a maximum of 77 seconds. In addition to the audio for the specific job posting, the app can also provide the user with general information about the company and will play a separate clip about the company’s overall culture and mission if asked.
“The labor force is shifting heavily to Millennials and Gen Z. People today aren’t just looking for a job,” Collier said. “They want a company with a mission they can believe in and live and breathe it every day. The jobs on the app range from high-level technology roles to entry-level sales and I’ve partnered with some great companies to share them all.”
There are currently several technology and IT consulting firms looking for employees on My Career Fit and Collier said he has brought job opensings from both small and global businesses onto the voice app including Xerox Business Solutions, edX and the design firm AKQA. The app is free for job-seekers. Employers pay to showcase their job opportunities on the voice app similar to an online job board.
My Career Fit is built on the Witlingo voice app platform. Witlingo’s microcasting product Castlingo slot perfectly with how My Career Fit should work, Collier said. Witlingo’s team has also been crucial for him to build out his idea into a functional voice app that can adapt as he improves upon it.
“I wanted a skill that adds value for job seekers and employers. Voice tech eliminates any and all friction in the search,” Collier said. “People looking for jobs get to hear directly from the employers themselves. As a recruiter when you reach out you want to be able to inform people about the company. Voice puts employers in front of job seekers they might never have known of.”
Raising Voices for Job Hunt
The McDonald’s Apply Thru skill helps local McDonald’s recruit employees by making it easier for interested parties to initiate filling out a job application. Prospective candidates can fill out the first part of the application with just their voice. Variations on the job-seeking voice app such as Career Advisor and Government Jobs have been available for some time, but McDonald’s dipping a toe in the water could indicate a trend of major companies using voice as a channel for hiring.
“I wasn’t shocked by the McDonald’s news. This whole space makes the most sense to develop for anyone who comes into contact with brands,” Collier said. “It’s very interesting to see it happen from my perspective in recruitment, but it’s a no-brainer for them. In the next five years, I think of voice in the same way as the internet was 25 years ago when Jeff Taylor created the Monster.com job posting site in 1994. That changed recruitment forever. Voice is going to be big and McDonald’s is lending real credibility to the idea.”
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