Signal – Big Brother software for recruiters is coming


    Cold calling is horrible. Let’s face it, no one likes receiving anonymous phone calls, especially when what’s asked of them isn’t what they’d like to hear. Likewise having to be the person making the cold calls is a horrible, unsatisfying, soul crushing experience knowing that most of the people who answer aren’t going to welcome your call, and will most likely react negatively. Finnish startup Joberate want to change things around in the recruitment field so that never has to happen again.

    Co-Founder Aki Kakko likes to joke that the software Joberate have developed is akin to ‘NSA for recruiters’. It’s name, Signal, would certainly not be out of place amongst a list of clandestine government project, but its actual function is anything but sinister and Joberate expect it to be beneficial to both employers and employees when used.

    The idea behind Signal is simple, if you knew when people were ready to take a new job they would be open to a phone call offering them a new job, and more likely to take it. The question is how do you know when people would be receptive? Well in the past you would have needed to speak with someone to find that out, but these days with people posting so much of their lives online, there are many places you can go to find out about how people are feeling.

    Instead of needing to cold call a list of candidates, their social profiles can be added to Signal which will then keep track of their online behaviour. Places like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn obviously come to mind straight away, but I’m told that Signal can make use of a huge 6,000 channels to find out more about its targets, these include other forms of social media, blogs and forums.

    The internal workings of Signal remain a closely guarded secret, but what it does with all the information it gathers is to place potential hires into different groups based on their job seeking activity level; active, semi-active and passive. Signal also allows you to organise candidates into different talent pools so not only can you see when someone might be generally interested in a new job, but in the specific type of work you might be offering.

    So recruiters only need to call a candidate when they believe they would be interested and hopefully candidates will receive less cold calls offering them jobs they wouldn’t want to take. Joberate have another market in mind as well though, HR staff will also be able to use the software to monitor employees and be alerted to when someone is thinking of leaving their job. This would allow HR the chance to retain quality staff by offering improved positions or pay before a competitor comes along and poaches them.

    Readers interested in the service Signal provides might like to know that Joberate have just launched an Indiegogo campaign where you can purchase the software at a discount price, or an incredibly overpriced hoodie if that’s more your thing.

    So the future is here, we don’t just have to be aware that our parents might be checking our facebook posts, or the government reading our emails. Now our employers and potential future employers might already be monitoring anything we thoughtlessly post online. Be afraid, be very afraid.