The job market has changed fairly dramatically over the last several years, with the unemployment rate peaking at close to 10% in 2010 and then falling to just above 4% as of February 1, 2018. While this represents great news for job applicants, it creates a challenging scenario for many employers struggling to fill key positions with qualified candidates. While employers spent years awash with desperate applicants, many may now be wishing they could only be reconnected with some of the potential hires they turned away not that long ago.
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Google’s Role in Tracking Previous Applicants
Valerie Bolden-Barrett, in an article for HR Dive, writes, “[a]ccording to Google, companies interact with 250 candidates before finding the right one to hire. Of the 249 remaining applicants, some might be a good fit for current openings—but sorting through those past candidates could be a rough experience without some help.” Enter: Google. Bolden-Barrett reports that the tech giant is set to introduce a program called “candidate discovery” to help reconnect recruiters with candidates they previously interviewed for job openings.
Google is claiming that its search capabilities will be able to find qualified candidates virtually immediately, as soon as a job becomes open. The technology draws upon organizations’ previous interactions with applicants, helping to ensure that the good ones don’t get away because they’ve fallen off your radar.
Keeping Your Options Open
The labor market, like so many markets, is cyclical. Sometimes employers find themselves in a buyer’s market, where potential hires are plentiful and desperate to find any job, and sometimes they find themselves in a seller’s market, where they need all the help they can get to put qualified people in key positions. At 4.1% unemployment, employers and recruiters today are definitely in a seller’s market. Tools like Google’s candidate discovery may help some reacquaint themselves with those they passed on before when the tables were turned.