embrace the mobile job seeker

Embrace The Mobile Job Seeker Now

Back in 2010 mobile recruiting was not on anyone’s radar because no one was hiring. Today, however, the economy is immensely different and more people use smartphones to search for jobs and nearly everything else.

If the mobile job seeker is not on the top of your budget priority list in talent acquisition, it should be.

Here’s Why:

  1. Home broadband adoption has slowed and more people use smartphones to access the Internet.
  2. 94% of smartphone job seekers have used their phone in their search.
  3. Only 3% of smartphone job seekers say mobile is not important to their job search.
  4. And probably the biggest number here is 60% have attempted to fill out a job application on their device

These percentages are straight from Pew Research.

Delivering a mobile efficient career platform to job seekers doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult to deploy. If you are still recruiting like it’s 2010, this is going to be a bit hard to swallow, but if you are up-to-date with current practices, it will be a refreshing breeze.

Here are several ways for you to make your candidate experience exceptional for mobile job seekers, for all of your job seekers actually, without breaking your budget.

One. Optimize for Mobile.

The great thing about mobile is that it’s, well, mobile. It can be taken and accessed everywhere.

That gives an entirely new market share the opportunity to view your jobs.

You should take advantage of that.

Look at your path to hire. From your career site to your application. All of it should work properly on a mobile device, tablet or phone, with having to pinch and zoom.

If it doesn’t you are pushing the mobile job seeker away and losing a large share of potential.

Be assured that a person looking for your company’s jobs will get a negative impression of your organization if your career site does not work on their phones the way they expect.

Two. Make it Easy to Find Your Jobs

Many companies do attempt to implement a mobile platform. They purchase a mobile job search or apply process and think that’s going to be it.

What they discover after it’s too late is that the path to those areas hasn’t been optimized.

For instance, their career site is still not mobile so when a job seeker lands on your career site and they see it doesn’t view properly on their phone, they leave. Never having seen that your jobs, or your application, are indeed mobile.

Be sure when you set out to find a mobile solution to your recruiting, you are getting exactly what you need. Not just a piece of the puzzle.

Three. Find a Job in Three Clicks

The link to your jobs should be clearly visible on your careers page. Don’t hide it and once it is found don’t let it take more than three clicks to land on a job.

Statistics show that for every click above three, you lose two candidates.

So strive to get them in front of your jobs in fewer than three. Have an apply button ready to go once they land on a job search results page.

Putting that apply button on the page with the results gives them to option to apply right away if they are familiar with the position. If not, they are free to click through to the posting.

Your apply button, obviously, will be there too.

Four. Make It Easy to Upload a Resume on Mobile

An area where many job seekers get stuck when applying for your job on a phone is the resume.

It’s difficult to store a resume on the phone. It’s even harder to create one from it.

If your application requires a resume, you should provide at least two ways for a mobile user to upload their resume to your application.

One is through online storage, like Dropbox or Google Drive. Two is through a URL that links to their online resume.

And here’s a freebie. Accept a LinkedIn profile. It’s as powerful a summary of skills and education/work history as a standard resume.

All of these will get you what you want and will let the mobile job seeker provide it very easily.

Five. Simplify Your Application Process

If your application is mobile, take it for a test spin. It’s a pain in the butt for most mobile users to complete a full-length application on a phone.

Generally, because they are attempting to do so while in motion. Like say, on a lunch break.

If your application takes an hour or longer to complete, then you can say bye bye to that mobile user.

Gin down your application to require the basics. Just get them in the door. Once they pass that initial barrier, break out that long form disaster for a second interview.

The End

If you haven’t prepared a mobile recruiting strategy for this quarter and are still hanging onto to old reqs that still need filling, 2016 is right around the corner.

Mobile isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s only going to get stronger and stronger. Your desktop experience will still be needed, but you will need more than that to compete with other organizations moving onto mobile platforms.

You should get a jump on next year’s budget right now and put together a plan that includes the mobile job seeker.

The longer you wait, the more obsolete you become in the eyes of the mobile crowd.

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