The Primer on Mobile Recruitment

Mobile Recruitment is the act of finding job candidates actively and passively through the use of mobile career pages and internet recruiting strategies through social platforms. Here’s a shocker – 1 BILLION job searches are done per month on a mobile device. Indeed.com, the metasearch engine for job listings, has the number one free business app for iOS and Android. Seventy percent of job seekers are using mobile technology! Disconnect – only 26 of the Fortune 500 offer a mobile optimized job application process. Your business can be more nimble. At The Applied Companies, we communicate with the bulk of temp-side candidates via text. People are using our website application process via mobile. Nearly 30 percent who accessed our website did so with a mobile device or a tablet.

Why is it needed? 

From the job seeker perspective, flexibility, convenience and immediate notices are a competitive edge. Getting a feel for the technological capabilities of the employer may determine if they’re a good fit. In the temporary employment side, first come first served is the name of the game. Employers can streamline their processes because mobile recruitment (properly executed) has a conversion rate five to 10 times better than PC, at 20 percent of the cost. Mobile recruitment abilities can help set you apart as a preferred employer and attract and engage tech savvy millennial talent.

Best Practices

From SMS job alerts to LinkedIn email, responsiveness is the job seeker’s mantra. Seventy percent of mobile searchers act within an hour; only 30 percent of PC searchers do. Employers can use mobile search engine optimization, mobile career pages, and highly targeted mobile recruitment campaigns. Doing more with the right less via mobile is cool and relevant. Employees want to be proud of where they work and reflect a company’s tech values. If your application process is not easy or quick, good talent will look somewhere else.

Video capabilities via mobile are great tools. Executive search uses Skype to interview candidates versus shouldering travel costs. Candidates submit video resumes with a green screen. Vine’s six-second videos are a creative way to post job position openings and give a peek into your corporate culture with company visuals. Job candidates can be required to submit their own Vine video as part of the application process, like “selling” one of your major products or services with a six-second video.

Limitations

You can identify a candidate; however, they may not be the person you would hire. Job seekers may not feel the company environment is a good fit.

Once mobile narrows the field of potential employers/candidates, you can then spend quality time looking at your top five choices.

Written by Jim Annis President/CEO of The Applied Companies, which provide HR solutions for today’s workplace. Celeste Johnson, Tom Miller, and Suzanne Chennault, Applied’s division directors, contributed to this article.