Within 2 weeks of its launch, Google+ had more than 5 million users, according to a recent article in PC World, and was the hot topic for days on technology blogs, business sites, and Facebook and Twitter feeds. That’s nowhere near the 200 million members of Twitter or 750 million of Facebook, but give it time. Like its social networking cousins, Google+ has the potential to affect business, but what effect will Google+ have on the recruiting world?

We already know the benefits of integrated social recruiting. And think about Google itself. Google+ is part of Google, the world’s largest and best search engine, dedicated to helping you find information. What are some of the new tools that Google+ will give you?

• Circles: Google+ Circles enable users to organize contacts into groups for sharing, across various Google products and services. There’s no limit to the number of circles you can have – so you can start separating your business contacts by topic and sharing highly targeted messages or updates based on the circle members. Recruiters can share jobs to specific Circles without spamming others. More value will come when recruiters figure out how to leverage the search capabilities of Google Profiles and grow out their circles. On the flip side, candidates will need to make sure their profiles are Search Engine Optimized in order to be found by those searching.
• Sparks: Just as candidates can become fans of a Facebook company page or follow a corporate Twitter account, users can add companies of interest to their Sparks Page for real-time updates on the given organization. Depending on how this functionality evolves, users could have saved job searches appear in their Sparks interest page.
• Huddle: Google+ has a BlackBerry Messenger-like group chat feature called “Huddle”, for communicating quickly and efficiently with circles via instant messaging. Huddling with applicants, instead of texting or e-mailing them, might be in your future.
• Hangouts: This neat little feature allows multi-person video chatting. Forget phone interviews! Hangouts has the potential to be the new interviewing platform of choice: with the multi-person functionality you can have a candidate, recruiter and hiring manager in 3 different locations all on the same interview.

A Google+ Business Edition is slated for launch later this year. Hopefully it will pick up where Facebook and LinkedIn company pages left off or fell short. Coming later to the game, Google+ is able to learn from the mistakes of both their own failed projects and the current contenders.

If Google+ continues to add users at its current rapid rate, it will have a profound impact on the way you interact with job seekers and clients. As a staffing and recruiting professional, you need to jump onto the bandwagon and explore the opportunities that Google+ provides.