Just When You Thought You Were Cool, Augmented Reality Bytes HR

You've already created a careers page that's separate from your main site. You even have a mobile site. You're posting news and photos on your Facebook careers page and talking to applicants on your Twitter careers profile. You've set up your company's Careers tab on LinkedIn and put videos of your office life on YouTube. What's next?

Get ready to add AR to your HR. AR stands for augmented reality, an exciting new technology that will change many of our interactions with the world, including job searching. What is it? Applications that use augmented reality overlay links, images, and information onto whatever you're viewing on your mobile device's screen. In a way, it's no different than the scoreboard superimposed over the live broadcast of a baseball game. But in other ways, it's a whole lot more.

Review sites such as Yelp! forsee using augmented reality to get information on whatever restaurants are around you. You'll be able to simply point your smartphone at a restaurant's storefront and see information displayed over the image, such as reviews, menu prices, or even the restaurant's history. Point your phone at a crowded bar and you may be able to find people who are currently tweeting, or logged into Facebook – or looking to date.

The possibilities for recruiting are obvious. With the right app, a job-seeker could point their phone at a building or office and immediately see what positions are available. Links would appear that lead to videos of employee testimonials. The job-seeker would be able to have an application form sent to them by email, or even to schedule an interview – after all, they're already holding their phone! Both the ease and the "wow factor" of such an innovative process will make sure that your company stands out in the crowded employment marketplace.

In fact, CareerBuilder is already pursuing this technology, as is CompanySpot in the Netherlands. The Dutch employment firm, which provides information on salaries and benefits to job-seekers, declares on its website, "What exactly is happening behind the large glass door of the headquarters across the street? Point your mobile at the building and you'll know.

Augmented reality applications for talent recruiting aren't quite here yet, but they're coming. Just as companies that scoffed at marketing on Facebook and Twitter eventually realized their mistake, recruiters who dismiss AR may soon find themselves scrambling to keep up. I'm excited about the possibilities that augmented reality offers and I'll track its progress, both here and at my LinkedIn group Your Digital Brand.

So enjoy "regular" reality while you can. It's about to get augmented!

Thanks to Jody Ordioni / ERE Media