Recently a technological breakthrough was made that I for one have been longing for.
When Marty McFly Hoverboarded himself to fame in Back to the Future more than 30 years ago the race began to make a real magic flying machine – and last week car maker Lexus finally delivered.
It doesn’t look like we’ll have hover lanes on Australian roads any time soon mind you, but nevertheless it’s an achievement which would have exploded my 10 year old mind.
Likewise every time I’ve used eye laser technology to glide through passport control at the handful of international airports kitted out for it I’ve thought of the Bond films of a decade or two ago showcasing iris security as fantasmagorical – and now we have it.
Even the seemingly nonsensicle concept of driverless cars, featured to comedic effect in futuristic films like Total Recall has become a thing, a real life thing, being tested on real life roads as we speak.
But perhaps the most astonishing way in which made up stuff from the movies has seamlessly entered our everyday lives is video calling.
To my children FaceTime is already an oft used verb. Seeing and talking to far off grandparents, parents and friends is a total gimme, as much a shrugable reality of the day to day as eating, drinking and frankly even Googling.
So ubiquitous has this once super advanced technology become that it is even starting to find practical uses in as staid and sober a world as human resources and personnel!
Video interviewing
Video interviewing it seems is fast becoming all the rage, with more and more job candidates Skyping in to be grilled rather than making the journey in person.
From an employee perspective time and travel costs are saved which opens up the possibility of international candidates coming into consideration – who may very well end up of course working remotely and video calling in everyday.
The telephone interview has always been a very unsatisfactory beast truth be told and seeing someone, even if it’s just on an out-sized smart phone does somehow give you more of a feel for the person, even if they’ve never been close enough to actually feel!
Another advantage for recruiters is the ease with which they can record these video interviews too. Which not only gives them the chance to look again at every answer and twitch, but also share the performance with other relevant people in the business – so everyone can equally apportion the blame if a dud is taken on.
This permanent record will of course mean that some of the more, how shall we say, stretch answers given about past experience or qualifications or skills, can be brought back up if they don’t exactly bare fruit once the person has been taken on.
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Which, let’s face it, is a pretty terrifying thought – especially if you may have erroneously suggested that you have a full clean hover board license!