.png)
If you’re looking to make better hires, get them in the door more efficiently, and do it all on budget, you should first recognize one of the biggest ways employers aren’t reaching applicants: Mobile. A mobile website, complete with a career page and a mobile job application process handled entirely on a phone or tablet is something candidates have consistently made clear they’re looking for. As of last year, 59% of candidates use phones or tablets to search for jobs, 52% use them to apply. What’s more, 90% of people are predicted to have a smartphone by 2020.
So where’s the gap? For 49% of talent acquisition organizations, mobile talent acquisition isn’t even a top priority, and 29% of them don’t know where to start when it comes to getting their efforts together. Only 18% of companies said their job postings are optimized for mobile, and only 13% say they’ve invested in optimizing their recruiting process friendly to mobile users.
Only 18% of companies said their job postings are optimized for mobile.
Employers, whether out of negligence or ignorance, aren’t leveraging the enormous mobile user market to make their hiring efforts much easier and reach a brand new audience of younger, more connected and more capable candidates.
Many of these mobile candidates are also Millennials, whose work preferences have been touted extensively. For 65% of Millennials, personal development is more important than making money, meaning they’re willing to settle for a lower salary if you can promise them growth. They’re also more creative and technologically savvy, according to a recent study by Duke University. These are the prime, young candidates – the up-and-coming industry professionals – ones you want to attract, and going mobile is a surefire way to get them to notice you.
For 65% of Millennials, personal development is more important than money.
Having an optimized mobile application process makes things much easier for both parties. Stephanie Hammerwold, Owner of HR firm Hammerworld & Pershing, elaborates on how a lack of a mobile strategy can lead to lost applicants:
"When hiring retail employees, I regularly heard from applicants who said they had a hard time completing the application on their phone. Many of us are starting to rely much more heavily on smart phones and tablets for the things we used to do on laptops and desktops... These days, if your site is not mobile-friendly, you risk losing potentially good future employees because your application does not work well on their mobile device. In the retail world, they will simply move on to another employer with an easier-to-use application.”
Candidates are looking for your job on the go; a slow and incomplete mobile application process will turn them away. An increase from previous years, 34% of recruiters say that their career site is mobile-friendly, and 28% of them say they’ve seen an influx of candidate applications via mobile devices. Because 90% of candidates learn about organizational opportunities from their mobile device, your company needs to make an effort to get a mobile career site up and running. But there are other benefits to going mobile beyond attracting better candidates. Going mobile with your application process also contributes to becoming a paperless office, providing benefits like cost reduction, faster access to important information, and a more environmentally friendly office.
There are several important benefits to creating a more mobile-friendly application process. But even if you’re ready to start optimizing your career website for mobile, how do you get started? What should you know? In this series, we’ll cover how to create a more appealing employer brand and job ads, how to use social sourcing to your advantage, how to build a better mobile website and application process, adapting your interviewing strategy for mobile, and new mobile-friendly ways to onboard and manage talent.
