Have you heard of Google Wave? Although the technology is still in its early development, it has been released in a limited fashion to those who have signed up. I was among the second wave of invites and have been using the technology for almost two weeks now.
There's lots of discussion whether it will catch on, but if you'd like a cogent explanation of what it is, I direct you to this article.
The question for me is how the tool might be applied to hiring situations. As the Daniel Tenner article points out, Wave is a significant improvement over email for a number of good reasons. Considering how much recruiters live out of their Inboxes, it's worth looking at for no other reason than that.
In addition, it might take the place of IM for chatting with candidates online, so it's got serious potential if I can keep all of those conversations confined to one tool and don't have to go hunting for logs.
I'm also intrigued about the capability of adding others to the conversation on the fly. Imagine having an initial conversation with a candidate and then inviting the hiring manager or future peers onto the Wave conversation. The continuation would be absolutely seamless. If the hiring manager wanted to catch up, all he or she would need to do is replay the wave.
Sharing work examples via pictures or attachments would be simple, making such documents available to all.
In addition, private messages to the hiring manager could be sent within the wave that could definitely help guide the conversation toward salient interview questions.
For the time being, I have to content myself with dreaming. Wave is still only available via limited invitation (sorry, I don't have any invites left!). Another downside that I hope will be addressed is that I don't get notifications when my waves have been updated. I just have to keep checking back.
The technology has tremendous potential and I look forward to seeing whether it receives broader adoption once it gets into full release.
ERE blogger Jeff Schwartzman gives some of his thoughts about using Wave for recruiting, too. I don't think some of the applications he mentions for recruiting are viable yet, but he does point out a few other possibilities.
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