The new AI-based interview Warmup tool from Google uses questions from industry experts to help users prepare for job interviews.
Google says that this news Interview Warmup tool was developed as part of its own Google Career Certificates programme, which offers professional-level online training. The programme was designed to address the problem identified by Burning Glass’ Labor Insight, that there are 1.5 million tech job vacancies in the US. These jobs are in fast-growing fields like data analytics, digital marketing and e-commerce, IT support, project management and UX design. Therefore, the Interview Warmup tool is an add-on to the training that could provide vital help for those whose tech job applications have reached the interview stage.
Even though it was developed for Google Career Certificates, the Interview Warmup tool is open to everyone.
Built-in collaboration with job seekers, the Interview Warmup tool lets users practice answering questions selected by industry experts and uses machine learning to transcribe the answers in real-time to help the user to discover ways to improve their interview technique.
Google says: “You’ll also see insights: patterns detected by machine learning that can help you discover things about your answers, like the job-related terms you use and the words you say most often. It can even highlight the different talking points you cover in each answer, so you can see how much time you spend discussing areas like your experience, skills and goals.”
Here in the UK, government figures showed that there were 1.2 million job vacancies in the three months to November 2021 and that around 82 per cent of all jobs in the UK list digital skills as a requirement. However, there’s been a tech skills gap in the UK for many years now, which has particularly affected SMEs and, at the same time, new tech industries have been growing, e.g. AI. So in 2020, the government launched The Skills Toolkit offering free, high-quality digital and numeracy courses. Also, the government’s ‘Levelling Up’ white paper promised that by 2030, the number of people completing high-quality skills training will have increased in every region of the country.
Although learning the skills for a job is essential, knowing how to come across well in an interview is a skill and could provide the competitive advantage vital to gaining employment. In this crucial last stage, Google’s new Interview Warmup tool could be of real benefit.
Finding staff with the digital skills that are important in today’s business environment can be a real challenge, particularly for SMEs. Interviewing provides the opportunity to examine candidates in much more detail. It would be a great shame if technically qualified and competent candidates who may well be suited for the job were rejected simply because they were less effective in interview situations. Therefore, the Interview Warmup tool has value both to candidates wanting to practice and hone their interview skills and ultimately for the businesses that need to uncover the relevant information from interview candidates that could lead to employing someone who provides real benefit to the company in the future.
