Smartphones offer unparalleled convenience, making mobile job searches more appealing than traditional desktop methods. Organizations that embrace mobile recruitment practices can tap into this trend, driving increased candidate interest and applications.
The value of mobile-friendly recruitment is undeniable: 90% of Americans use a smartphone, and 86% say they would use it in their job search. Organizations can reach more job seekers and convert more applicants by optimizing websites, leveraging social media, and simplifying the application process. Promoting a mobile-friendly job application can boost applicant numbers by over 11%, highlighting just one of the many advantages of mobile-centric recruitment.
With so many people using smartphones in everyday life and their job search, organizations have much to gain by ensuring all recruitment content is optimized for candidates on the go. When talent acquisition teams deliver a mobile candidate experience, the following benefits are possible:
Mobile-friendly integrations tell candidates the organization is up-to-date with modern technology and cares about making its content more accessible. By demonstrating the willingness to adapt career content for mobile, the organization builds a reputation for being forward-thinking and technology savvy.
A mobile recruitment strategy enhances recruiter communication with candidates, making it more personal and direct. Since candidates are more likely to have their smartphone nearby more often than they sit in front of a desktop, communications via mobile app and text will reach candidates faster and spur a quicker response.
Optimizing job content for mobile and making the mobile application process easy for applicants reduces the likelihood of application abandonment, thus driving higher application rates. As application volume increases, job advertising dollars are used more efficiently to improve CPA metrics.
Tip: Recruitment marketing teams can use unconventional recruiting practices in conjunction with their mobile strategy to improve their ability to build a strong brand reputation and effectively compete for talent.
Optimizing company content for mobile viewing bolsters the company’s reputation across the board—among prospective applicants, employees, customers, and other key stakeholders. In recruitment, mobile-friendly solutions can be applied in all of the following areas:
A mobile-optimized career site provides a seamless user experience and enables candidates to engage with career content in many forms, including text, video, and static images. The key characteristics of a career site optimized for mobile include:
Mobile-friendly job postings make searching, filtering, and accessing open position details easy for candidates. In addition to making job postings concise for easy smartphone reading, recruitment teams can make postings even more engaging with elements such as embedded videos and links to relevant company and career content.
Candidates often communicate with recruiters and hiring managers using their mobile devices, speeding up replies and interview scheduling. Beyond emails and phone calls, recruitment teams can utilize mobile apps and SMS/text messaging to provide candidate feedback, send job alerts, and engage the talent pipeline.
Many people access social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn on their phones, making them excellent vehicles for increasing candidate awareness and engagement. Just about any career content can be shared on social media, with links taking viewers back to the content source. Other ways to leverage social media as part of a broader mobile-friendly recruitment strategy include:
Tip: Smart candidate engagement practices can enhance each touchpoint along the candidate journey, from viewing the career site to applying. Recruitics’ talent engagement and conversion solutions help organizations develop career sites, landing pages, and branding content that builds candidate awareness and keeps candidates engaged before and after they apply.
The application process should be quick and easy to complete on a mobile device. If it’s too long, as many as 73% of candidates may abandon their application. For optimal results, acquisition teams should ensure a short application process doesn’t require uploading documents (not all candidates have their resumes stored on their phones). It’s also sensible to give candidates more than one way to apply, for example, via social media and ”easy apply” applications.
Incorporating mobile recruitment into existing practices is a multi-step process made more manageable by modern technology. To achieve the many benefits of mobile-friendly recruitment, talent acquisition teams should take the following actions:
Developing a clear picture of the current state is the first step in identifying areas for improvement. Thankfully, it’s not difficult to determine if the career site pages and application process are mobile-optimized. Asking a focus group or recruitment team members to help is a great way to identify any deficiencies quickly.
Each individual can use their mobile device to navigate relevant web pages and other sites. Asking the following questions will help identify any navigation issues and non-working features:
Tip: Prospective applicants use various mobile devices, so be sure to include iPhones, Android devices, and tablets during the audit.
Adapting design elements for mobile makes websites, job listings, and application pages adjust to fit the size of the viewer’s screen. As a result, images are correctly scaled relative to text, and the content-to-white space ratio is balanced. Another benefit of responsive design is higher search engine rankings. Google now follows a mobile-first indexing strategy that ranks mobile-optimized results higher than unoptimized web pages.
Social media is an excellent tool for reaching passive and active candidates alike, with 70.1% of Americans using it. Via shares, comments, and likes, organizations can meet prospective candidates where they are, promote their brand, and create a community. Social media is beneficial because it can feature or link to any recruitment content, including job ads, career sites, employee testimonials, videos, and career event promotions.
Tip: Some social media sites are more popular with specific generations than others. Therefore, it’s essential to tailor social media recruiting efforts according to candidate demographics and generation.
Mobile-friendly recruitment doesn’t just support the candidate experience; it also makes the recruitment process more efficient for recruiters and other interviewers. An applicant tracking system with a corresponding mobile component makes applications accessible to recruiters 24/7. As a result, recruiters can use their phones to review applicant profiles, share interview notes, and send automated emails and text messages.
A data-driven recruitment process utilizes analytics to measure the effectiveness of mobile recruitment and the impact of ongoing improvements. With customizable recruitment analytics and visualizations, recruitment marketing teams can track metrics such as:
In a world where nearly everyone uses a smartphone, organizations must incorporate mobile optimization strategies into all recruitment practices, from the first moment of candidate awareness to the end of the hiring process. As prospective candidates increasingly respond to mobile-optimized job ads, postings, and messaging, talent acquisition teams will have more success in attracting talent and delivering a better candidate experience.
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If you need help getting started, the team at Recruitics is here to help! Recruitics’ AI-powered recruitment marketing and candidate engagement solutions help organizations optimize mobile recruiting content, maximize social media's value, and track success against hiring goals.
