Gmail Priority, a sorting service from Google that picks up where spam filtering leaves off, has some potentially troubling consequences for recruiters, should the service catch on with users.
For candidates already plagued by the resume black hole, Gmail Priority might be just the thing to convince them to go old school and snail mail in a job application.
Since the beginning of the month, Google has been offering an enhancement to its popular and free Gmail service, which has more than 176 million users worldwide. Gmail Priority, an opt-in service, filters incoming email into three categories: Important and Unread, Starred, and Everything Else. The idea is to make it easy for heavy email users to know what mail to read first.
Like everything else Google does, Priority depends on algorithms to sort the mail. First it filters out the spam (and does a great job of that). Then it will decide, based on what you read, what you respond to, and to whom, and what you tell it, which category it belongs in. Starred mail is in the user’s control and marks mail for special consideration.
Sounds useful? So what’s the downside? keep reading…
