In a crowded market for recruiting software, Google has helped play hitmaker as strong search results and ads helping differentiate among a field including a host of startups and legacy players. Now Google&#8217;s taking on a new role of competitor.
With a new application announced on Tuesday called <a href="https://hire.google.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hire</a>, Google is taking aim at the small- and medium-sized business part of the recruiting market. Its pitch is simple: for recruiters who already spend much of their day in Gmail and Google Calendar, they can schedule interviews in Hire much faster and with a lot fewer clicks. &#8220;For people scheduling interviews, that&#8217;s all they do, day in and day out,&#8221; says Dmitri Krakovsky, a vice president at Google Cloud. &#8220;We believe this will save recruiters multiple hours a day copy and pasting things from one application to another.&#8221;
When Google studied how its G Suite customers were using recruiting software, they found that G Suite typically operated in a &#8220;parallel universe&#8221; to the third-party or homemade tools a company used for its recruiting functions. Companies would end up speaking with applicants by email and perform interviews using Google Voice and Hangouts, then log the activity on those tools. But in the interests of saving time, data would get lost routinely in that transfer, causing headaches as applicants moved through the system, Krakovsky says.
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The alternative solution to doing it all in Google would be to schedule calls and conduct more business within the third-party apps themselves. There are plenty of options in the market, from Forbes <a href="https://www.forbes.com/cloud100/#5d523ce75f94" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Cloud 100</a> companies iCIMS and Greenhouse Software to Bamboo HR, part of Utah&#8217;s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2017/07/11/how-utahs-silicon-slopes-became-clouds-new-capital/#1072c1013310" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fast-growing cloud computing scene</a>, as well as Jazz HR, Lever, Workable, Zoho and public companies such as Cornerstone OnDemand, Oracle and SAP SuccessFactors. Google is betting that despite all those options — or even because of how many there are — a big chunk of its 3 million business customers for G Suite will find it easier to put everything in the same place as their work email.
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Hire syncs up to keep emails in one thread in Gmail and attach info such as room availability, contact numbers and interview questions within a Calendar invite. The app is for sale separately as a premium add-on to G Suite, initially just in the United States and for businesses of under 1,000 employees. More than 100 customers are already using Hire, Krakovsky says. The company plans to announce machine learning tools later this year that will allow, among other use cases, for recruiters to resurface strong candidates for previous positions when new ones open up.
The app is the first role-specific attempt of its kind for Google, which <a href="https://www.blog.google/products/search/connecting-more-americans-jobs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">announced a Google for Jobs initiative</a> at its I/O conference to tackle job boards and listings. The closest comparison may be Google for Education as a set of tools, though that offering is specific to a vertical, not a function. Krakovsky says other role-based applications aren&#8217;t imminently planned.
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For startups in the recruiting software space, the Hire app may limit growth opportunities within Google&#8217;s sphere. For customers who are happy with their existing providers, Hire may be intriguing more as an add-on or extension than as a full replacement.
If the result is happier G Suite customers, Google probably wouldn&#8217;t care. &#8220;Two days ago I was talking to a customer, and she said, &#8216;when I saw what you were doing with the calendar, I wanted to cry,'&#8221; says Krakovsky. &#8220;She had to open 7 different tabs, look at availability, write that down and go back to the app to try to make sense of it all. If we can do that in 30 seconds, it&#8217;s a huge boost.&#8221; &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alex Konrad</a>, FORBES STAFF

Google Takes Aim At Recruiting Software Market With New App Called Hire

You might be the most charismatic entrepreneur since noodles were invented, but recruiting the best talent, and retaining it for at least seven years, is a complicated task in today’s world where professionals are hopping from one company to the next. For many millennials in particular, staying four years at one company for four years is not desirable.
Who you bring into your company, can make or break its reputation. It can either be a disaster or glorious journey.
Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, uses a bus to illustrate this. Before the bus starts driving, you need to find the right people, put them in the right seats, and only then can you decide where you want to go.
When the US government was breaking up John D. Rockefeller’s company, Standard Oil, he asked that he identify certain people he would like to retain. He did this because he knew he could put together another successful company with the right people.
Recruiting the same high-minded people, that share your ambitions, can be challenging. You end up with the scenario of leaders leading leaders, which can lead to friction.
I hear many entrepreneurs saying you should hire people more intelligent than you. This should be done with caution because you might find yourself in a position where your leadership is undermined. However, you also don’t want to be working with people that are incapable.
Some employees in your company may be entrepreneurial – they’re called intrapreneurs. They need to be enabled, rather than suppressed. Give them the freedom to come up with new ideas in your company, like Alphabet, which owns Google. This is a company that is innovative by nature and has a culture of enabling such restless souls – otherwise they will resign and start their own thing.
If you are, or ever have been, an entrepreneur, you will know that finding a right match for your company can be arduous. It is for this reason that numerous hedge fund companies, like Citadel and Bridgewater Associates, still interact with new candidates and recruits.
The conundrum we face is that we don’t always keep those recruits, no matter how much we value them. It has been found that, on average, only one out of 16 employees will remain for an extended period of time at a company.
Some companies, once they have shortlisted eligible candidates, try to talk them out of wanting to be employed there. They do this to ensure that they only hire people that are passionate about working for the company. The reason for this is that it is better, and more cost effective, to lose a candidate than an employee.
Goldman Sachs has one of the most vigorous recruiting processes. They will ask candidates to come at a certain time, then when they arrive, the senior personnel from Goldman Sachs won’t be there for the appointment, or will arrive late. The candidates who leave before the manager arrives will not go further in the process; those that remain are told the moral of the experience is to learn to wait for someone who is higher than you in business hierarchy.
In your company you have three groups of employees who roughly make up these percentages, the 20%, 60% and 20%. The first 20% are the unproductive people you wish to fire at the first chance you get; the second 60% are average employees, who are  and consistent, and who form the core of any company; the final 20% are your top-notch employees, who generally over-perform. The problem with this group is that everyone wants them; competitors are continuously trying to snatch them. For this reason, they tend not to stay long at a single company, instead moving to the highest bidder in the market.
That middle group – the 60% – is who you need to nurture. They will stick with you and their loyalty will produce the best results.

Hang on  to your stars

It’s a hot summer’s day in Sandton, Johannesburg. As we meet, the sun blazes bright like Titan’s fiery wheels. Brightness has played a big part in Johan Botes’ journey to entrepreneurship. On this day, the future is even brighter; he has just opened an office in Fourways, Johannesburg, 254 kilometers away from Mokopane, in northern Limpopo, where he took his first breath in 1962.
“I am so happy that the company is growing from strength to strength and most importantly providing jobs for young people who deserve every opportunity,” he says.
Botes employs 55 permanent staff and 12 contractors in five countries. The average age is 27. The company merges accounting and IT to make businesses quicker and reliant on fewer staff.
“The drive and energy of our team is one reason we’re growing so fast. We recruit entrepreneurial, self-motivated people at a young age and embed them into our business. They’re adaptable, quick to learn and ready to work overseas independently. We’re very strategic in our recruitment process – we’ll only take people with the right cultural fit, business acumen, and energy level to succeed in a global workplace,” he says.
Building a successful business was hard and sweaty. For three years after high school, Botes came face to face with rifles and drill in the army as a conscript.
With teachers for parents, he was inspired to save for university fees. Hard work earned him a career as a chartered accountant, working for Deloitte, before going into private practice as an auditor and then returning to Deloitte for a five-year stint. Here he learned about the enterprise resource planning (ERP) market. Botes swapped his well-paid job to start Consilia Technology Investments – a company that provides technology for business – in 2012.
“First we started the business as Consilia Consult; after a year, we realized we are not a consulting company but a technology business and we changed it to Consilia Technology. We can take all your database services; optimize it to make the business work,” he says.
According to Botes, the management information system integrates areas such as planning, purchasing, inventory, sales, marketing, finance and human resources. He started the business after realizing that clients in South Africa were finding the existing high-end ERP packages expensive and complicated. He decided to build a business around Sage ERP X3 software – a solution designed to be more flexible and affordable.
“Our view is that accountants are a dying breed. Systems are taking over. You can automate almost all the accounting systems in a business today through, for example, barcoding and scanning. It changes the fundamentals of business completely. One of our clients is a logistics company that requires daily costs per vehicle everyday per component such as tyres, fuel and maintenance. We give them a report per vehicle in different categories so they can see which vehicles are making profit, without having to capture one thing. Everything is available on a phone, iPad or computer. You can sit in front of a TV and authorize payments,” he says.
Botes says that the immediate priority for Consilia is to bed down its businesses in its new offshore territories before looking at other markets.
“We’ve been cash-generative since the start and have not had to take on debt to grow our business. We believe that if we offer a skill that is in demand worldwide, and do good work at a good price, we’ll continue to grow strongly in the years to come.”
He says there is a market for businesses like his in the continent and entrepreneurs should take note and keep employees smiling.
“As a young person, to start up a business and get funding is difficult. Since we started, 21 people have gotten shares. They haven’t paid for them yet but they pay from dividends. They have three years to pay up. We give them a discount of 80 percent. If you show someone that you trust them and you give them something, they become involved and want to see the business grow. One of the young guys said to me no one in his life has ever given him anything,” he says.
The future seems bright for Botes.

‘Accountants  Are A Dying Breed

Kay Vittee started her career as a secretary, but with ambition and a business degree, she worked her way up to become the CEO of Quest Staffing Solutions in Johannesburg. And that’s no mean achievement, considering Quest is among the country’s top staffing solutions providers specializing in the recruitment and management of white-collar staff.
Vittee credits her success to another woman: her mother, who during South Africa’s apartheid era, with no formal education, became “the first Indian woman to hold a managerial position at a retail store”.
“I come from a background where I had a subdued father but a very ambitious mum,” says Vittee.
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Being brought up in an Indian home at the time meant she was to get married as soon as she finished school. Vittee’s parents did not have the means to continue her studies, so right after matric, Vittee got engaged to her boyfriend, today her husband of 28 years. Her dreams of studying further were placed on hold as Vittee started looking for work.
“I remember opening the newspaper and seeing ‘regret, whites only’ [everywhere]; the one position open was an administrative position. I remember I had this lovely pink skirt on with a drop top and as I walked in for the interview, I smiled because I was so excited. There were four other candidates and I secured the position earning R383 ($33).”
Life was not easy.
“When I got married, my room had a second-hand carpet, we didn’t have a dining room, we didn’t have a kitchen. When people came to visit, I remember getting a little box for them to sit on and I was so scared they’d fall, I do remember my humble beginnings,” she says.
Thus, at age 19, she embarked on a career, always keen to learn, and in a year, was promoted.
“I always made sure I read quite a bit on being the best I could be. It was important for me, I took my work seriously, I had a good work ethic.”
Vittee soon worked for ABSA bank, and despite being a young wife and mother, also got a few academic degrees under her belt. She was promoted as the executive of the bank’s contact centers. Quest soon offered Vittee the position of CEO.
After 14 years of corporate experience, she had no difficulties stepping in, managing a staff of 15,000. “One of the things that stood out was emotional strength, my ability to work with a diversity of people and manage change.” Regarded as a sound business leader, Vittee inspires her employees to impart superior customer service, and is a sought-after motivational speaker. Retire she will never.

Tag: Recruiting

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Google Takes Aim At Recruiting Software Market With New App Called Hire

Hang on to your stars

‘Accountants Are A Dying Breed

The Recruiter Who Will Never Stop Hiring