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New Google feature streamlines job-hunting

Sibahle Malinga
By Sibahle Malinga, ITWeb senior news journalist.
Johannesburg, 01 Mar 2018
Luke Mckend, Google SA country director.
Luke Mckend, Google SA country director.

Google has unveiled a new job search feature that allows South African job-seekers to customise and refine their search to meet their specific needs.

According to Google, the new job search experience, launched today in SA, Kenya and Nigeria, builds on Google's existing commitment in Sub-Saharan Africa to improve economic opportunities for job-seekers and employers, demonstrated through its 'Grow with Google' initiatives.

Speaking at the launch in Johannesburg today, Google SA country director Luke Mckend explained that with the high unemployment rate in SA, the new Google facility will help millions of South Africans search for new opportunities.

"For the first time, when someone uses their phone or computer to search on Google for a job, they will see a streamlined experience, letting them explore, research and find relevant, local job postings.

"The feature allows job-seekers to search for specific jobs and refine their search to meet specific requirements, such as a specific employer, location, company type and job title, etc. In addition, the feature allows users to save the different jobs and click the 'get alerts' button to get e-mail notifications when new jobs matching their search appear in future."

Using Google Maps integration, job-seekers can search for jobs in any place they can find on the map, and if signed in, they can see how long it would take to commute to the job from home.

Mckend adds that in the past, users were able to save their job searches on separate Web sites, such as Careers24.com, Jobmail.co.za and others. However, the Google search feature allows for all selected jobs to be saved under the job search experience.

Google says it is inviting all job sites, platforms and employers to integrate with the search engine and make their jobs eligible to display in the new jobs search experience.

With Google's newly released open documentation, any jobs provider is able to integrate its content through the open structured schema.org Web mark-up standards it supports.

To optimise the feature and make it more useful, Google is working with a broad and growing cross-section of partners, including Job Mail, Careers24 and Gumtree. Through these collaborations, Google says it is able to present job postings content accurately, as soon as it is posted, to exactly the people who will find it most relevant.

"After 21 years in online recruitment in SA, Job Mail is excited to work with Google in SA," says Felix Erken, MD of Junk Mail Media Group.

"Following its launch in the US in 2016 and the success it's shown since then, the new job search experience within Google will help bring Job Mail customers' vacancies to a more targeted audience of job-seekers and career-climbers. Job-seekers have never had it easier to search and find relevant jobs so quickly. In SA, where unemployment is still such a challenge, the new job search feature is a welcome initiative."

"This new job search experience is part of our broader commitment to improve economic opportunities for job-seekers and employers through Google technologies in partnership with the broader employment industry," says Mckend.

"Google is committed to providing useful, accurate and relevant information based on your search queries and helping you connect to your next job. In this way we hope to make a contribution towards matching job-seekers with jobs and taking steps to tackle the skills gap."

In addition to its digital skills initiative and the new jobs search experience, Google supports tech start-ups at various stages of their lifecycle through the Launchpad Accelerator Africa, launched last year.

The initiative aims to provide over $3 million in equity-free funding, mentorship, working space and access to expert advisers to over 60 African start-ups over three years.

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