WARMING UP FOR INTERVIEWS THANKS TO GOOGLE
Google, the multinational tech company is bringing one of its AI machine-learning based tool to Africa to assist candidates in prepping for their upcoming interviews. The tool is geared to assist candidates with their interview performances by providing them with mock interview scenarios and questions that will allow them to effectively practice ahead of the real thing. As the Company explains, the motivation behind the tool is down to the fact that “Interviewing in a new field can be hard, especially if you don’t have access to friends, family or mentors in the field who can help you practice and prepare. That’s why we’ve been collaborating with job seekers to start building a new tool called Interview Warmup that lets you practice answering questions selected by industry experts and uses machine learning to transcribe your answers and help you discover ways to improve.”
The tool which was originally developed specifically for the US market is launching in Africa in October 2022. The tool is geared towards specific industries – those which Google has determined are likely to have the biggest growth potential in the long-run, as well as those that tie in with their Google Career Certificates program. Roles that the tool can potentially assist in interview practice for include spaces such as digital marketing, ecommerce, project management, and UX and data analytics to name a few. That being said, the tech company says that there are sufficient, more generalized interview questions that can be used effectively to practice for other industry interview scenarios too.
The AI based machine learning technology behind the tool works to analyse ‘interviewee’ responses based on factors such as their background, technical knowledge and situational knowledge too. The in-tool Chatbot poses interview oriented questions to interviewees based on the specific outlined industry of interest. The answers are then transcribed and analysed based on a number of components including repetitive language and technical keywords used. The company announced its plans for the African market in early October at a Google for Africa roundtable. The idea behind the African launch of the Interview Warmup tool is to expand the current selection of industries and corresponding models to include more that are more suited to the African market and job industry. Of course given the nature of the technology that powers the tool, the more people who utilize it, the more data can be gathered and implemented in the analysis of future candidates’ mock interview answers.
The Company has made it no secret that it has big plans for the continent with $1 billion worth of investment and infrastructure proposed in the next five years. Its initial plans centre on South Africa and Nairobi.