A job search can imply endless typing and reading of Google or curated job sites. It’s a quest that may not require you to speak aloud until a recruiter reaches out — if they ever do.
That solitary, slow experience is one reason why ZipRecruiter, an online job site, has created an app for Amazon Echo that encourages users to say: “Alexa, find me a job.”
Launched Thursday, ZipRecruiter’s app allows job seekers to ask Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa what jobs are available, gather more information about the positions, and apply to them (if they have a resume on file).
The app is the first for job applications on Echo, a system that already allows users to pay bills and book flights via a black cylinder with voice recognition.
“Conversational [design] is not perfect for a number of industries, but there’s something that makes it extra magical for us,” Jen Ringel, ZipRecruiter’s director of product, told Mashable. “Voice in a way is humanizing the job search.”
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To search for jobs, Echo owners do not need to create an account or log-in on ZipRecruiter. They can simply download the app and start talking to Alexa.
The app knows a handful of commands, including, “Alexa, tell ZipRecruiter, I hate my boss,” which will then prompt a response about a job search.
The Echo integration is the latest project Ringel and Sara Siegal, a software engineer at ZipRecruiter, have been working on to make the job search more conversational.
Even though it’s not a real human, it still becomes more of a human experience
“Part of the reason why job search is so stressful cause you’re really putting yourself out there. You go for a job you hope you’re qualified for, you think you’re qualified for and then you send it off and guess what: silence,” Ringel said.
The team recently released a chatbot for Facebook Messenger and have seen job seekers apply to twice as many jobs through the system compared to other methods.
With Amazon’s Alexa, Ringel and Siegal said they hope people will feel even more comfortable finding and applying to jobs.
“Even though it’s not a real human, it still becomes more of a human experience,” Siegal said.
Ringel and Siegal both own Echo devices and casually converse with them, including testing jeopardy skills and learning cat facts.
For now, Echo owners can only hear about and apply to jobs with the ZipRecruiter app, but they plan to build more features in the coming months.
The future of ZipRecruiter and Alexa could include listing a job of the day, creating a resume and answering interview questions.
