Mobile recruitment is on the rise – 27% of job seekers expect to be able to apply for a position via a mobile device.
Here are my best practices for recruiters using mobile:
1) Prioritize seamless integration:
To successfully engage with candidates your company’s mobile experience must fit seamlessly into your mobile recruiting process and across all channels.
Any time an applicant feels a disconnect in the process, you can be sure they will abandon their search. Additionally, one unified system ensures a single source of truth for compliance reporting and offers complete feedback to improve your hand and attract great talent.
2) Remove browsing pain points:
Job browsing never stops, so it’s critical that your mobile career site is accessible and easy to browse. Make sure your mobile site isn’t just a recreation of your desktop site. Understand exactly what information mobile seekers want to see and deliver that information. Reduce the number of clicks and scrolls to make it easy for the applicant to apply to your company. A candidate on a mobile device will not click through 10 pages to apply, so stick to a 4-click maximum. And remember, more times than not, mobile users will research in private, but they want to browse on-the-go.
3) Expand your horizons:
Perhaps you don’t have an opening that is an exact match to a particular job seekers’ skill set, however, they are interested in your company. It’s important to make it easy for these candidates to join your talent pool, so you can reach out to them when opportunities arise. Place access to the network in an easy to find location and make it easy for job seekers to provide their information.
4) Understand your audience:
All website owners track data that tells them who is coming, where they are coming from, what types of devices they’re using, how much time is being spent on each page, etc. Use all the data in your toolkit to deliver a mobile career site that provides candidates with the information they require. Like a marketer, your goal on your career site is to get someone to complete your form (submit their resume). If you have too many barriers in place, your candidates will abandon the page.
Utilize data to uncover the point at which they may be abandoning your site, so you can make necessary changes. Understand the types of devices they are using, so you can tailor the apply process as well. And understand what information they are looking at, so you can reduce unconsumed content and beef up content of interest.
5) Harness the power of referral tracking:
Make sure you can easily track employee referrals through the mobile apply process.
READ MORE: Why Employee Referrals are the Best Source of Hire
6) Remove bottlenecks between candidates and information:
Your mobile site needs to be a lightweight application that quickly loads and provides applicants easy access to the information they are interested in. Keep the apply process online and allow your candidates to complete the apply process directly from their device. Some sites take candidates through the first part of the process on mobile, and then ask candidates to email their resume. This breaks the process and creates a barrier between the candidate and the job they are after.
Additionally, if you do not optimize your site for mobile viewing, pages may take too long to load, leverage technologies that devices may not support, etc. This will create a poor user experience and your candidate will abandon the page.
7) Brand, brand, brand:
What makes your company unique or stand out? Why would a candidate be interested in joining your company? Play up your brand and make sure candidates have an opportunity to understand who you are, what you do, and why they should care. Showcase your company culture and teams to keep both top of mind for the candidate.
8) Make applying easy:
Make it easy for candidates to apply by keeping clicks to a minimum. As with marketing, you get drop off with each click, so be sure to think through the overall process and make sure candidates can quickly apply to your company
9) Simplify the process:
Allow candidates to upload resumes directly from the devices they use most, such as their Android devices, Apple devices, Box, LinkedIn, and more. The simpler the process the better the engagement; parse the data provided by applicants to automatically fill in fields, so your candidate doesn’t need to. This saves the applicant time and energy — both of which motivate potential candidates to apply to your company.
10) Create a new experience:
Don’t simply recreate your desktop experience. Understand what mobile candidates are looking for and make it available in highly relevant bite-sized pieces of content.
Author: Dan Finnigan is CEO of Jobvite.
