Last week Google surprised the small to mid-company landscape by announcing that Google Hire will shutter in September 2020.
Google Hire was launched with great fanfare a little over two years ago as a top job candidate search, posting, and evaluation option for companies that used the Google cloud services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, documents, spreadsheets, and video conferences. It has a price range of $200 to $400 a month depending on how many G-Suite licenses a company needed.
Hire used Google’s search and AI capability to look at job titles, job descriptions, and locations and match openings to job candidates, even past job candidates.
Google said that Hire was successful, but it is being closed so Google can focus its resources on other products in the Google Cloud portfolio. Hire customers will not be charged for the service after the next billing cycle, and there will be no features added.
Within a day of Google’s announcement to close Hire, its competitors such as Workable, Breezy.HR, Freshteam, and Recruiterbox (end-to-end applicant tracking systems) posted ads to fill in the gap left by Google Hire. There are other options in the small to mid-size company market, such as Bevov.
Hire is the latest of several Google products to close, including Google+, and Allo, a chat app.
Google for Jobs, which scrolls and filters job listings from approximately 23 other sites to help job seekers find ideal jobs, has also hit a speed-bump. It is facing antitrust complaints in the European Union. These complaints come two years after Google was fined a record-breaking €2.4 billion ($2.86 billion) for manipulating search results to prioritize Google’s own shopping comparison service.
With Google for Jobs, the initial job board is not cut out of the process. Google directs job applicants back to the site with the initial posting to apply for the job. Google for Jobs does not have a job application process. Nonetheless, many of the 23 job board sites still believe Google leaves them at a disadvantage.
If your company uses Google Hire, what options are you considering? Join the conversation…
Victor Assad is the CEO of Victor Assad Strategic Human Resources Consulting. Today’s blog includes excerpts from his new book: Hack Recruiting: the Best of Empirical Research, Method and Process, and Digitization. You can buy it online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Archway Publishing.