Starting your job search through a voice recognition assistant
Talking to a ‘robot’
Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home are currently nestling somewhere between the ‘Innovators’ and ‘Early Adopters’ on the Product Adoption Curve illustrated below; if you have one of these two products you will know the excitement and anticipation that comes with setting-up and then discovering what your ‘assistant’ can do…you may also know what they cannot do (which is also evident at this stage). On balance (once your expectations have been realigned), the voice recognition assistant is a useful addition to the home (in my humble opinion).
For those of you that view these devices differently, you likely will be part of the ‘Early Majority’ or even ‘Late Majority’; essentially, you want to purchase a tried and tested version 3.0 or 4.0 of the product that has been optimised without any of the frustrations. As was the way with individuals that came late to Twitter, Facebook and even Snapchat, the benefits of these platforms will have been fully realised and utilised by others (*in all these cases, ‘others’ means a growing Global community).
In this context, would you want to be at the back of a Global queue for your next career opportunity?
If the answer is ‘no’ (and I suspect it might be), I would encourage you to start getting ‘socially comfortable’ with speaking to a voice assistant; as with Siri, we still seem to be self-conscious about asking a ‘robot’ to do something for us in front of our family, friends and colleagues (unless they are tech geeks like us).
Let the people speak
I am in the process of conducting a survey at present simply entitled ‘How do you look for a new career opportunity?’; early results (as of this morning) still illustrate a traditional approach to the job search. When asked how individuals typically look for a new job and which platforms and tools they use, LinkedIn still comes top with referrals from friends and colleagues following closely behind. Other results show the amount of time dedicated to looking for a new career opportunity on a daily basis; surveyed individuals allocate 30 minutes (53%), followed by 1-hour (20%) and then 2-hours (6%) and then ‘Other’ (21%) to the daily search.
Other interesting data so far illustrates an interest in applying for career opportunities via Facebook and Snapchat whilst WhatsApp is also a channel individuals would like to utilise as part of the application process.
The survey says…
While the survey sample is still small and the survey will be open to more participants until the end of May 2017, the early data indicates the following:
Individuals may have a limited amount of time per day to search and apply for new career opportunities
LinkedIn is a primary platform
Facebook is one of the social platforms that individuals would consider using to search and apply for new career opportunities
Individuals would be open to using messaging channels such as WhatsApp and potentially Facebook Messenger
Individuals have expressed a potential interest in having a mentor to support them through the job search process
A significant percentage would use a chatbot to assist them with applying for opportunities
The future model?
Bringing us back to the opening subject of voice recognition assistants and their integration into the way we will search for new career opportunities; look at the (rather basic) process flow below and tell me if this is something you would or wouldn’t consider; I welcome all constructive and respectful thoughts and opinions.
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