Name: Apploi
One-Liner Pitch: Apploi helps job seekers find jobs nearby, and surfaces the best applicants for employers.
Why It’s Taking Off: Apploi allows job seekers to save basic information to a Passport so they don’t need to fill out personal details including education, work details and portfolio more than once.
When a startup called Apploi contacted Tiara Williams about putting a job application kiosk at community center BronxWorks, she expected something that looked like an ATM. In reality, the Apploi kiosk resembles an iPad on a musician’s stand, and can also be seen in retail locations including East Coast yogurt shop chain 16 Handles.
In the Apploi iOS app users can find nearby jobs and fill out a Passport, which can be sent as an application for multiple job opportunities and to many potential employers.
A candidate fills out a job application on the Apploi kiosk.
Image: Apploi
Apploi is a welcome alternative to a process long dominated by paper. Before the advent of smartphones, I remember walking up and down my local mall, filling out paper applications at all the places I liked to shop in hopes of landing a summer job. Not surprisingly, most of these stores still use paper applications — even if it’s a national chain, the hiring decisions are still left up to a local store manager rather than utilizing a central human resources team as employers might for salaried positions.
But could sandwich shops, grocery stores and clothing boutiques benefit from a recruiting app? Adam Lewis, founder of Apploi, is making that bet. His first company, Innovate CV, helps organizations search and review resumes, but after he was approached by a large retailer interested in the technology he decided to tackle customer service hiring.
The app rates candidate applications as green, yellow or red, depending on the quality of responses, and allows each employer to add custom questions in addition to the standard Passport users fill out — and can require video responses.
“The resume lacks context and doesn’t showcase personality or other attributes candidates would want to show — and companies should want to see,” Lewis explains.
One example is a retail company that might upload audio of a disgruntled customer and ask candidates to record a video response, which provides better clarity on how that candidate will actually perform at the job.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBDD6UU5Ce0?enablejsapi=1&&w=1280&h=720]
At BronxWorks, the Apploi kiosk is popular among clients, Williams says, in part due to the “cool factor” of it being on an iPad.
Most clients have access to a smartphone, Williams says, and thus can also use Apploi’s app, or access Apploi through the web version on the organization’s computers.
In the first two months of use, BronxWorks hasn’t seen a client get a job offer through Apploi yet, but BronxWorks as an organization is getting ready to use Apploi to accept applications for its own open positions.
The GPS capabilities of smartphones, which Apploi uses to show users jobs that are nearby, could help users cut down on transportation costs to and from work.
Apploi is currently available in 15 U.S. cities, and has clients in London, Bangkok, Copenhagen and Nairobi. Jobs from more than 300 organizations have been posted, from small businesses to global brands and organizations including the United Nations, and not limited to the customer service fields for which Apploi had designed the service.
Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/03/02/apploi/
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