Google Economy Tech Expert Andréa Willis

Google has introduced AI-powered career tools to help job seekers. These tools can assist in finding the most searched jobs, provide interview practice, and even generate interview thank-you notes, salary negotiation notes, and cover letters. AI is becoming increasingly important in various industries, including broadcasting, dentistry, and foot specialists. The goal is to make the job search process easier and help candidates stand out in a competitive field. The AI tool, BARD, can also adjust the tone of written content. These tools are available on Google's website. Well, Google is now in the business of helping job seekers navigate the market using some very cool AI-powered career tools. And as AI continues to become part of our daily lives, more and more things that it's getting involved in, what are some things that this can use to help us in terms of what are the most searched jobs and what are some tips that we need to know? And how can AI help us nail that interview, that all-important job interview, such an important thing? My guest this morning at the RNJ Morning Program is a Google economy tech expert. We have Andrea Willis, who is with us here at the RNJ Morning Program. Andrea, hi. Burt Barron, WRNJ Radio in New Jersey. How are you today? Good morning. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Honest to goodness, true story, I just got an email yesterday from a company that is offering a service to my industry, to broadcasting, to communication, to commercial production, whereas if you want to get like a sample radio commercial made, you basically send some written scripts to this company. And using AI-generated voices, they can literally create a radio commercial in like seconds, where it's like, I want a male voice, somebody, you know, mid-40s, a little bit of a California accent, you got something like that. And if you don't like that, in a matter of seconds, they could just do it completely differently with a different voice and create these fast and rapid turnarounds. So it's just an example of so many different industries, and now including my industry, where AI is beginning to play a much more critical role. But I've had guests here, Andrea, dentists, I've had foot specialists that all are employing AI in one degree or another in their respective industries and their practices. But for what you're going to talk about here, AI is now involved in helping job seekers get out there and find that dream job. Is that the next thing on the horizon for AI? Yes, that's right. So, you know, on Google search, we're seeing that people are really interested in switching jobs right now. So we have a number of tools, many of them powered by AI, that will help them land their next role. And it's amazing that you could just go ahead and use AI. I guess you sort of, you input whatever skills you have, maybe whatever experience you have. It's almost like you give the AI and Google a little bit of a profile of what they're working with, and then they go and do the legwork and find some good career potential matches for you. Is that kind of at its essence, how it works? Yeah, so there are a couple of things that we recommend. First, starting with finding that job. So on Google search, you can actually go within the tool and say, I'm looking for remote jobs in New York. I'm looking for no-degree jobs in New York, or jobs for people who have a history major or majored in science, and we'll pull that up for you. And then when you're looking to, say, you find jobs, you apply, you're looking to interview, we have a really cool tool called Interview Warm-Up. It's powered by machine learning, and it helps you to practice your interview answers with AI. So we curated a bunch of the most common interview questions, and you can practice them out loud with this tool. The tool uses AI to transcribe your answers and to suggest ways that you can improve, maybe things that you're repeating over again, common themes. It's all private. You can save it. So that's a really great way to first just go ahead and practice for the interview. And then we have another tool that helps you take that even a step further. Yeah, that's very cool. So it's almost like you get a chance to do a little rehearsal, if you will. Almost like you're in a boardroom or you're in an office or a meeting environment, and you're sitting down for that interview just to get you prepared and maybe get you ready for that interview. And then, well, fine-tune this and maybe try this instead of that, and this way, when it's showtime, when it's time for that real interview, you've got kind of an idea of how it's going to go. Exactly. So we're really excited about how AI is going to actually help people through the job process and help them realize ways that they can improve that maybe they wouldn't get from a family member or a friend who isn't as well-versed in common interview questions and ways to really improve. And AI can help you do that. Yeah. And I can see how also AI can be a beneficial tool. Andrea Wildis, Google Economy Tech Expert, is my guest this morning, and we're talking about how Google is helping job seekers using some AI-powered career tools. I can see how even for job seekers, you know, based upon they're getting someone there who has already gone through the AI route, you have an idea of their skills, their experience, maybe even that all-important minimum salary question has also been addressed as well. And then it's time to jump into the interview process and hopefully move forward with it. Exactly. And our tool, BARD, which is our generative AI tool, also helps people throughout the job interview process. So say that you land that interview, you've practiced your responses, well, now you want to be able to impress the employer. You can go to BARD. You can ask them to write you interview thank-you notes, write salary, you know, negotiate notes, help you fine-tune your resume, help you write cover letters, just going into the tool saying, hey, you know, I'd like to try a thank-you note for this data analyst job or write me a cover letter for a cybersecurity job. And it'll do just that, and it's a great way to make the, you know, whole job search process a lot easier because then, you know, interviewing is already a lot of work, and the follow-up and making sure all of your materials are up-to-date. And so it really assists you with starting drafts for you so you don't have to also spend time, you know, doing a lot of writing. Yeah, and that's just another example, and I've gone over this with other experts in other fields, Andrea, that I've talked to, that AI really isn't replacing anything. It's just making what you do, making it that much better. So now for someone who is going through the job search process, well, this will remind you about those thank-yous and how important that is and to make sure that you're doing everything the proper way that you need to do. It's not going to get hired for you. It just wants to help you get hired. So being able to cross these Ts and dot these Is that maybe someone, a prospective employee, might just kind of forget to do, this picks that up and just makes you much more attractive as an employer. If I was someone that was in the job market, I would hop on this right away just because of the tools that are there. Listen, you know the drill. Anything that helps you stand out in a very crowded field of potential employees, you have to go for it. You have to do what separates you from the other employees and the other candidates. It's such an important thing nowadays. It's such an important thing, and the tool, we're really excited, it actually launched in most countries. It started in the U.S., but B.A.R. just launched in most countries today, and a new thing that you can do within the tool is you can actually have it adjust the tone. So you can say, oh, you write something really simple, write something for a professional setting, write something that's no longer format. So it fine-tunes what you're trying to say even more. So we're really excited about how that's going to be helpful to people. Yeah, no doubt about it. I wonder if the day will ever come, Andrea, where I can just say, AI, do the morning program for me for today. I'm tired. I'm going to sleep in. Can you handle the morning show for me? I wonder if we'll ever get to that point. I'm not sure. Where can someone go online to learn more about these fascinating AI tools with BARD? Where can we find all this? To practice your interviews, you can go to google.com slash interview warm-up, and then to go to BARD to help it write for you, you can go to google.com slash BARD. Excellent. I really appreciate it. And the name, by the way, BARD, that is fantastic. Whoever came up with that, just brilliant. Andrea Willis, Google Economy Tech Expert. Did you come up with that? You should take credit if you didn't, because it's kind of a cool thing. Thanks for joining me today, and I really appreciate the updated information. Have a wonderful day. Thanks so much for having me.