GoBe is a new chatbot just released by GoHire. It will help job seekers find and apply for jobs via messaging platforms.

For employers, GoBe can help pre-screen candidates, and access the 1 Billion users of Facebook messenger each month. I asked its founder Jonathan Duarte about the new service and what it means for job seekers and employers.

Why it’s important to job seekers?
The goal for job seekers is to communicate with companies based on open jobs.
Internet recruiting and job search solutions have never crossed this bridge. The current apply process, of fill in a form and click send, isn’t a two-way communication. Job Applications, and web forms, are made to insert data into a database. They don’t communicate.

There’s never been any real “communication” between job seekers and employers, unless the candidate is one of the minority few, who actually gets a “call-back’ from a recruiter or hiring manager, to take the next steps.

We think messaging apps, with tools like GoBe can not only solve this problem but can continue to engage candidates over a longer period of time. Additionally, since messaging gets higher engagement and response rates, we think we can make the entire job search process faster and more efficient, for job seekers and employers.

If a candidate applies via messaging, a company could implement a bot to respond, regardless of the candidates application qualifications. The chatbot can provide more information about the company, the recruiting process, job fairs (locally targeted), why someone would want to work for the company, etc.

Not every candidate is qualified for a position. They may not live locally, have the minimum required skills etc. Recruiters don’t have time to talk to unqualified candidates, understandable, but a bot can! Recruiters will be able to use bots to send messages to candidates, asking them for small pieces of information, their availability, their current interests, to take skills tests, etc. Recruiters already do this, through email, but their is no tracking, automated reminders, and email engagement and conversion rates continue to decline.

From when we built the first job boards, back in the 90’s, the goal was to get candidates to the employers. Monster spam employers with emails, and it worked. Then, employers stopped responding to emails. Then, bigger companies implemented databases, the ATS, to shove the data into a database for DOL compliance and workflow reasons.

This was great for the employer, but not for the job seeker.

Bots have the ability to change this. Will it happen over night? No.
Will it happen in the next 3 years? Absolutely.

Companies winning the candidate experience awards will by default have to have bots in place. You can’t have an award winning candidate experience, if you ignore 80-90% of the people who apply. You also can’t leverage your existing recruitment marketing spend if 80-90% of the candidates who visit your corporate career site, simply leave, never to come back. Bots can change this too.

There will be a lot of solutions that a bot can handle, including responding to candidates requests, answering questions about a companies corporate culture, their work hours, their products, their benefits, etc. These will take time to build out, but are absolutely solutions that can be implemented in the short-term.

Messaging is a communication platform. It’s unique and has a lot of benefits, that email doesn’t, but that’s for another conversation.
(Side notes: Facebook Messenger is just one Messaging applications, like WeChat, SMS/Text, Slack, Skype, Kik, and Line. FB Messenger is just our first entrance point, we’ll launch sms/text in a couple weeks, and then expand to other messaging apps in the future. Messaging apps are now used more than social networking sites.)

Why would a candidate want to apply via messaging, rather than a web browser?
Well their primary goal is to get their “application” (be that a resume, or initial pre-screened profile), in front of the hiring manager.

Most corporate websites are not mobile optimized, and because they site on the ATS, probably won’t be any time soon. As a result, we’ll be able to assist those companies with a mobile-first tool that allows them to accept candidates via a messaging platform.

Employers shouldn’t care if the job seeker is on Messenger, Slack, Skype, SMS, WeChat etc, but the the tool that communicate does, as each platform has it’s own limitations.

To the employer, they want a platform that can handle all applicants. To the job seeker, we have to make the application process as frictionless as possible. 49% of mobile users are downloading “0” new apps per month… Apps are dying, if not already dead. The space is crowded. The top 10 apps are dominated by the biggest players. Job seekers don’t want to download another app, then start it up, then configure it, and then figure out how to create a profile, so they can apply.

Giving the candidate 5-10 simple questions, sequenced, and specific to that company, and that job, is more than enough for most companies to decide they want to talk to a candidate.

I think the primary market for GoBe in the initial phases will be high-volume, mobile-first candidates with limited access to the traditional resume, who are applying for part-time, labor oriented positions, where timing is of the essence.

learn more at https://facebook.com/gobebot