We all know the stereotype that millennials and smartphones go hand-in-hand, but that’s not the whole picture. Americans across every generation check their phones once every four minutes!
How people use phones has drastically changed over the years. Modern-day job seekers aren’t an exception and adapting to this reality is essential for companies looking to hire. So, it’s no surprise that an exciting technology in the HR landscape is mobile recruiting.
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This article will cover everything you need to know about mobile recruiting. Let’s get right to it!
- What Is Mobile Recruiting?
- Benefits
- Mobile Recruiting Tools
- How To Build a Mobile-first Strategy
- The Bottom-line
What Is Mobile Recruiting?
Mobile recruiting is a process focused on attracting potential hires with the help of mobile devices. It involves launching job ad campaigns, developing career sites and accessing applicant databases on your smartphone or tablet.
Traditional vs. Mobile Recruiting
To understand the difference between traditional recruiting and mobile recruiting, first, you need to know the similarities between the two:
- Both strategies optimize recruitment by sourcing, screening and shortlisting relevant candidates.
- The endgame of both strategies is finding the ideal candidate for an open role.
There’s just one key point of difference: mobility. Yes, we know how much that sounds like a “water is wet” statement, but here’s where it gets deep.
Where “regular” recruiting falls short in flexibility and visibility, mobile recruiting leverages a responsive design by being more accessible to future hires.
The most challenging year for recruitment is far from over. The dwindling rate of labor participation and overall churn brought on by the Great Resignation point toward the need for a new approach to tackling the post-pandemic talent market.
Many HR thought leaders stress the importance of treating your candidates like your customers. That more personal approach means treating your potential hires like a marketing team would its target audience, starting with engaging your candidates where they spend most of their time.
A recent study by Careerarc shows that 86% of job seekers use social media in their job search. Safe to say, the talent search is going mobile.
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Primary Benefits
According to Appcast’s recruitment benchmark report, 67% of all job seekers completed their applications on a mobile device. So if you want to up your recruiting game, a mobile-first approach should be high on your list!
Keep reading to learn more about how mobile recruitment is the way forward.
Enhances Talent Sourcing
The global average SMS open rate in 2021 was a staggering 95%. SMS campaigns are one of the many tools in the mobile hiring toolkit that let job seekers apply with their phones. By delivering job ad campaigns with a mobile-first approach, your team can communicate recruiting details via SMS, Facebook messenger and Whatsapp.
Leverage the right mobile recruiting technologies to improve the number of applications by providing mobile-optimized options.
Boosts Candidate Engagement
Are your candidates ghosting you? According to a survey by Indeed, nearly 50% of job seekers abandoned the recruitment process midway. A way to minimize ghosting is by improving the candidate experience. Mobile recruiting provides tools to involve applicants in every hiring process by sending timely alerts, nudges and follow-up messages.
Mobile recruiting software allow applicants to view their progress on their smartphones, letting them know they’re still in the race
The range of engagement tools encourages prospective hires to complete the hiring process. Focusing on candidate experience helps develop a positive impression of your company and can bring the drop-off rate to a healthy level.
Increases Team Collaboration
Whether it’s phone calls, video conferences, emails or social media, a mobile phone is a hub for all communications. The benefits of mobile communication also apply to mobile recruiting, allowing managers to reach, evaluate and engage with their team and candidates anytime and anywhere.
You’ll also improve decision-making by providing the option to connect, share and evaluate different hiring activities over mobile devices. That way, your team will always be on top of the hiring pipeline and recent developments.
Improves Flexibility
The good news is that mobile recruiting tools are cloud-based, allowing your team to track talent pipelines on the go. Mobile recruiting provides greater recruiter flexibility in the following ways:
- The mobile responsive design of the tools makes it easy to navigate across work areas on your preferred mobile device.
- With mobile recruiting, you don’t have to be tied down by locally installed systems. Whether you’re away from the keyboard or working remotely, you’ll have all the resources you need on your synced device.
- Tools like conversational AI and prescheduled emails also free your teams from repetitive tasks.
Mobile Recruiting Tools
The solutions you implement should simplify the application process, leverage geolocation and channel your recruitment efforts.
With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of top tools to consider to aid your recruiting strategy.
Mobile-Optimized Career Sites
Making your website and career pages mobile-friendly ensures how easy it is for your applicants to interact with your job postings on their preferred mobile device.
However, mobile solutions go beyond simply making a career site available on smartphones. It includes optimizing job descriptions, incorporating keywords and eliminating time-consuming steps to apply, so your candidates can submit their applications quickly using a smartphone.
Text Recruiting
The text-to-apply feature allows potential hires to complete the job application process and submit resumes using mobile devices. Mobile solutions allow applicants to upload documents and cover letters to get things done — a level of flexibility and convenience that many people will appreciate.
Mobile Apps
Some vendors provide native mobile apps designed to handle recruitment cycles. Think of it as a mini version of your recruitment software that exists on your mobile device. With mobile hiring apps, you can access candidate information, check hiring status and share reports remotely in real-time.
Some popular recruitment software providers that also offer apps for employers are:
iCIMS hiring app provides different action items to review candidates, job descriptions and offers. Source
Location-based Job Ads
You can take the targeting ability of your job ad campaigns to a new level with geolocation data. Using this data, you can bid more strategically on campaigns within specific geographical areas that are the best match. Your job listings will appear more frequently to candidates in those areas.
Social Media Integration
A mobile recruiting strategy is incomplete without social media. With 302 million social media users in the U.S., social media channels help conduct a comprehensive talent search.
By adding social media to your existing hiring technology, you can:
- Enhance employer branding. Building a social media presence can convey your company culture and values to potential hires.
- Learn about applicants’ backgrounds. Today, LinkedIn profiles are as good as second resumes for understanding candidates’ professional experience. Ethically scanning candidates’ social media profiles provides insights into their interests and uncovers potential red flags.
- Include passive candidates. Optimize your talent search to include potential hires that aren’t actively looking for a job by emphasizing career opportunities and leveraging social circles.
Automated Chat
Another feature is AI-powered digital assistants. With preprogrammed answers to frequently asked questions, chatbots can interact with applicants during the initial hiring phase by asking questions or selecting multiple options to complete tasks.
AI assistants provide answers and options to complete tasks. Source
How To Build a Mobile-first Strategy
Now that you know the advantages, standard capabilities and importance of a mobile recruitment strategy, where do you start?
That’s a loaded question since every business is different. Your mobile recruiting tools should ultimately align with your overall talent sourcing goals. Follow these steps to get the best results.
1. Conduct an Internal Analysis
First, identify who will develop, launch and monitor your mobile campaigns and what will help optimize their efforts. Involving your talent acquisition team in the process will help you better understand your hiring strategy.
Asking key questions to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your existing recruitment strategy will help you tailor your strategy based on the needs and requirements of your company. Use the following questions as a starting point:
- What are the different talent-sourcing channels that your company uses? Job ad campaigns, job portals and branded career sites are some examples.
- How well does each of those channels perform? Make a note of the number of applications from each source.
- Are they, or can they be mobile-optimized?
2. Check for Mobile-Friendliness
Put yourself in the shoes of the candidates your company strives to hire.
- How does your website appear on a smartphone or tablet?
- Does the design, job description and call to action encourage more job seekers to apply?
- Is the application process unnecessarily lengthy?
- Do your job ads convey employer branding?
Consider using tools like Google’s mobile-friendly test to assess how well your website appears to potential applicants on their mobile devices.
3. Review Your Competition
Your next step is to conduct a competitor analysis. Explore the mobile functionalities your rivals use to attract recruits. Identify talent sourcing channels and review how easy they are to apply to.
Based on what you find, assess the pros and cons of using specific mobile recruiting tools in line with your company.
4. Develop a Requirements Template
Lastly, glean your findings and organize them into must-have and good-to-have features for your recruiting software. This exercise will give you a good perspective on what’s indispensable and which features you can live without. After ranking the capabilities, develop a requirements template to compare suitable vendors.
If you’re a first-time buyer and want to learn more about what an all-around hiring platform can do for your company, read our Recruitment Software Features and Requirements Checklist.
The Bottom Line
Mobile recruiting is about more than simply creating a mobile-friendly website. It’s about polishing your company’s social media pages, providing an easy application process and connecting with your candidates throughout the recruitment cycle.
With a range of mobile recruiting tools in the market, your next step should be carefully considering which mobile functions to integrate with your other hiring technologies.
Did we miss out on any mobile recruiting features? Let us know in the comments!