An entrepreneur from East Sussex aims to revolutionise the recruitment industry and is risking everything on it – even if it costs him his own businessThere’s no getting away from the fact more people than ever before are using mobile and tablets to search for jobs. But what impact does this have on recruitment and what can be done to help facilitate this shift?
First of all, it should go without saying that any job sites which aren’t optimised for mobile are shooting themselves in the foot. 2016 was, after all, the year in which the number of mobiles surpassed the number of humans on earth.
Convenience is key for the modern job seekers. We know the bounce rates are higher for job seekers looking from their phones so the option of a one-click-apply button is a great way to encourage applications.
This is particularly true at a time when job seekers will often have several different drafts of a CV pre-prepared and ready to send.
Whilst most applications are still done on desktop, an increasing number of job sites now offer ways of uploading CVs and cover letters from tablets and mobiles. This is a very recent phenomenon. Research done in the States by Pew last year found that 14% of American job seekers applied for a vacancy in this way.
According to extensive research done by Madgex this Summer, 70% of job seekers have never applied for a job using their mobiles. However all those surveyed were found to have used a more than one device (desktop, mobile, tablet) in their job search.
This exposes the common misconception that mobile and tablet traffic is considerably less significant than desktop traffic. If the job seeker finds the right position for them on their phone then there’s little doubt they’ll go back to their desktop to fire off an application.
This is why it’s useful job sites to include the option for people to login to an account with their email addresses to save jobs which they can apply to later, like we have at AdView.
As recruitment and employment professionals, often the best thing we can do is put ourselves in the shoes of the job seeker. This means the industry needs to come to terms with two important developments: the first being the fact that mobile is only increasing in importance and secondly that people nowadays browse for jobs online with the intent to apply later.
By Kevin Brady, Director at job search site AdView. He has over 20 years experience in recruitment.
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