• Google For Jobs
• Google Cloud Jobs API
• Hire

Google for jobs was expected since a while: If you have a powerful, AI enabled search engine, and that job searching is also a search after all, then it’s quite normal to see it out verticalized for jobs. Given the strategic role of Google as the mother of all traffic acquisition and SEO strategies, all other existing job search engines collaborated with Google with no hesitation: LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Monster and basically everyone else. Google for Jobs was announced at Google I/O and is live as of 6/20/2017.

Later last month Google also announced (silently?) Cloud Jobs API, in order to give some additional tools to the community of developers. Like any strong strategy, you need developers to create some custom apps to increase your impact on the market. The Google Cloud Jobs API enables developers to build more sophisticated job search tools using Google’s For Jobs search engine.

And today, Google announced Hire, in direct competition with Oracle’s Taleo, Greenhouse, LinkedIn and Jobvite, Brent John, Google’s Product Manager for Hire (no he is not for hire:) ) considers that hiring is still a problem. In a Google Blog post released today, he writes: “it takes an average of 52 days to fill an open position and costs about $4,000 to interview, schedule and assess each candidate. At the end of the day, that adds up.”. Hire is supposed to help fixing this problem.

Thanks to a tight integration with G Suite (formerly known as Google for Work), Hire streamlines the process of managing the interactions with the candidates, who may have applied to the job, using Google For Jobs. Emails are synced in Gmail, interviews are in Google Calendar and can be run in a Hangout Video Call (or in person) and documents are shared using Google Drive.

This video shows how scheduling can be done with Hire and Google Calendar.

Hire is the name of the product resulting from the developments done by the Bebop team acquired by Google in 2015. It was a “development platform that makes it easy to build and maintain enterprise applications,” as Google CEO Sundar Pichai described it at the time. This was also how Diane Greene, founder of Bebop joined Google. She is now leading the whole Google cloud business unit.

For now, Hire is only available to Google’s G Suite U.S. clients with less than 1,000 employees. It is proposed as a paid-for add-on service, with prices varying depending on the size of company without further details (no you can’t just order it yet, but only asking for a demo; that’s how sales work, or don’t work, at Google).

The post Google Doubles Down On Talent Marketplace and HCM Strategy appeared first on Sales & Leadership Training.

This article was previously published on Venture Beat.

VR is hot!

But is it permanent?

Those of us who are old enough to have seen the rise of virtual reality in the ‘90s and then the fall and then another rise in mid 2000 and then another fall, know that the present hype about virtual reality may not be sustainable.

That said, we have also seen in the past that for some technologies, after several cycles of hype, the innovation finally does become mainstream. One example is personal organizers (mobile calendar and contacts apps) on a portable device. Palm OS and PDAs rose in 1996 and fell a few years later, and then Pocket PC and Windows CE rose in early 2000 and fell. It wasn’t until the emergence of iPhones and Android smartphones that those applications became sustainable.

So the big question is: Is VR here to stay this time, or is it hype?

To find the answer, my firm has been researching the VR market for the past few months. We evaluated and estimated product sales for over 30 companies and 40 products globally through revenues and units sold/used for each of the vendors. Here are some of our findings:

1. In 2016, hardware makers dominate the VR market. Sony (PSVR) is clearly leading and is taking one third of the whole market. This is thanks to a) the large installed base of about 40-50 million Playstations sold to users who are the perfect target for a VR upgrade and b) the best balance of price/performance for the VR headset around the $300-$400 price point.

2. Sony is followed by Facebook (the Oculus platform) and Google (Day Dream, Card Board, Tilt Brush, etc.); neither company has a VR user base anywhere close to Sony’s, and their products are either at the low end or a bit too expensive. Still, both companies are generating hundreds of millions of dollars already in 2016, thanks to their brand and the quality of their technology.

3. Samsung follows with another mobile headset (Gear VR). And HTC is close behind with its high-end headset, Vive, thanks to its partnership with Valve and the very popular Steam platform.

4. Content providers, mostly game makers, as well as technology providers come next. This has to change in the coming years (and hopefully will change) since that’s where the bigger value resides. But it is normal to see hardware makers emerge first: Hardware vendors had to ship their kits to developers. Now that there are enough headsets out there in users’ hands (or rather on their heads), it’s time to accelerate generation of content (games, mobile apps, desktop applications, etc). The result of this effort will be more VR games and applications in the coming months and years.

5. Towards the bottom of the top 20 list, we also see vendors positioned in the “VR for work” segment, with VR applications in collaboration, education, industry, military and defense, science and medical, and other research fields.

To dig into more data about the VR market, purchase the report from here.

The post Top Virtual Reality Vendors appeared first on Sales & Leadership Training.

You can now grab a VR headset and explore the earth from your own room or office, in a fully immersive mode, and with a real sense of presence.

For fun or for work, checking out a friend’s new house or remotely checking a neighborhood where you may want to rent or buy, exploring the nature or learning about new geographies, we have all been using Google Earth since its introduction back in 2001. Today Google took Earth to the next level: You can now get immersed into exploring mother earth.

From wherever you are, stroll the streets of Paris, soar over Yosemite, or teleport across the globe:  WALK AROUND,  FLY, or  BROWSE… Go anywhere. Google Earth VR puts the whole world within your reach. Take a peek at some of the incredible sights you’ll experience along the way in the preview gallery here.

For now it is available on Valve’s Steam platform, with a HTC/Vive headset.

What? Not a VR fan yet? Well enjoy the regular video here!

And check our Market Report on Virtual Reality :

https://www.01consulting.net/portfolio-item/vr-virtual-reality-market-research-analysis-report-2016/

The post You Liked Google Earth? You’ll Love Earth VR! appeared first on Sales & Leadership Training.