Here’s Why 2016 is the Year of Mobile Recruiting
Mobile recruiting could have been huge in 2010, but most of us didn’t need to hire employees, so it became an expense we couldn’t afford. The economy in 2015 is entirely different, though, and mobile recruiting just jumped to the top of your talent acquisition “budget priority list.”
Let me show you why you need to start caring about mobile recruiting:
- 86 percent of active candidates use their smartphone to begin a job search.*
- 70 percent of active candidates want to apply via mobile.*
- 55 percent want to upload a ‘resume’ to your career site.*
(*stats via Kelton Research)
Meanwhile, in that nice cushy corner office, you are living in an alternative universe. You haven’t put serious money into mobile recruiting probably since you last built your career site.
- 13 percent of you believe you’ve invested enough in mobile-friendly recruiting.
- 80 percent of you are wrong and don’t have mobile optimized career sites.
- 82 percent of you don’t have your job posts mobilized.
We are in a period in our history where people are obsessed with their mobile devices. A recent Deloitte survey revealed that 90 percent of people check their mobile device within one hour of waking up, 50 percent of people check their phones 25 times per day and 10 percent of us do it 100+ times per day.
Candidates Need A Mobile-Friendly Experience
Delivering an exceptional mobile experience for candidates doesn’t have to be difficult, technical or expensive, but it will require you to get uncomfortable with a few things you currently believe you must do. Some of this has to do with mobile; most of it has to do with you changing behaviors that have been ingrained through a 10-year recession.
Here’s what you should be doing right now:
- Get your career site optimized. Pull up your job site right now. Does it look like a ‘junior’ version of your desktop site? Well, then, it’s not mobilized. It should be easy to navigate like the other mobile apps you love using. Pinterest has different versions for people who use a desktop computer and others who use a smartphone or tablet device. So should your career site.
- One click. Maybe two. How many licks does it take to get to the center of the Tootsie Pop? (Remember that commercial? No? I’m old.) How many clicks does it take someone to apply for a job in your company? For every click you add, you lose two candidates. It should only take one click for someone to apply to your jobs. How many does it take someone in your environment right now? Why? No, really, why!? All you need is a name and one piece of contact information to recruit someone.
- Get comfortable accepting profiles instead of resumes. Talent advisors get stuck believing we have to have a resume to begin recruiting someone. We don’t. Resumes are great, but I don’t need it to get started. Many organizations are now having candidates apply using a social networking profile alone. Would you do that? You better think about it.
- Measure you career site web traffic better. Do you know how many applicants came to via mobile versus desktop? You should! You will be surprised at the “before” and “after” once you get your website and jobs mobile-optimized. You are currently missing out on outstanding (and maybe younger) candidates via mobile.
- Deliver what candidates want. Do you list your benefits on your website? The dollar value of those benefits? Why not? Potential applicants, especially passive candidates, are looking for your total rewards package. Tell them. How hard is it to find your job openings? I know of one Fortune 500 site that makes someone click through four times to find their employment opportunities, which is a crime. There should be a big fat red box that screams “JOBS HERE” on the home page. Too many companies make it way too difficult for candidates to find what they want.
Mobile usage is growing exponentially. Your potential candidates want to apply to your jobs via mobile. Make it as easy as possible to capture this potential candidate pool. Go out right now and apply for your jobs via mobile, if you can, and see what this experience is like.
Mobile used to be the future. It’s no longer the future. Catch up.
