Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy Brought to you by
Table of Contents Introduction 3 Moving to Mobile 4 Evaluating Your Existing Career Site 6 Building a Mobile-Optimized Career Site 7 Integrating Your Applicant Tracking System 9 Improving the Candidate Experience 11 Social Media and Mobile Recruiting: The Perfect Pair 12 Summary 13
Introduction Mobile is taking over the world. By the end of 2015, there will be more than 2 billion smartphone and tablet users worldwide. 1 For the first time ever, more users will be accessing the Internet wirelessly from their mobile devices than from their PCs. 2 This will have dramatic repercussions for employers and recruiters. Today, more than 70% of all passive and active candidates use their mobile devices as part of their job search. 3 As mobile devices go mainstream, job seekers are expecting to have the same candidate experience from their smartphones as they do from their PCs. When their expectations aren t met, candidates are likely to abandon the application process and reconsider their opinion of a potential employer. 4 As it becomes harder and harder to recruit top talent, having a mobile-optimized recruiting strategy has gone from optional to a must-have. In this paper, we will look at: Why you should adopt a mobile-first candidate experience How mobile increases candidate conversions and lowers cost-per-hire Why social media and mobile recruiting go hand-in-hand How to use mobile to generate high-quality referrals And more... 1. IDC: Mobile Internet Use to Pass PCs by 2015; PC Magazine; Hachman, Mark; Sept. 12, 2011 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392796,00.asp 2. Mobile APPeal; New Relic; Shevchik, Leigh http://blog.newrelic.com/2013/03/13/mobile-appeal-why-the-future-is-mobile/ 3. Mobile Recruiting Statistics that Will Give You Pause; LinkedIn Talent Blog; Ignatova, Maria; Feb 5, 2014 http://talent.linkedin.com/blog/index.php/2014/02/mobile-recruiting-statistics-infographic 4. Ibid. 3 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy
Moving to Mobile The move towards a mobile-dominated world has happened faster than anyone could have imagined. In less than ten years, cell phones have morphed into smartphones with the same processing power and capabilities of an average desktop computer. As desktop usage drops, consumers are using their mobile devices for more and more activities, requiring organizations to reconsider how they conduct business. Job Seekers Who Have Used Mobile To: Active Passive Active Passive Active Passive Active Passive Look at a Company s Career Site 72% 62% Look at Openings on Social Networking Sites 64% 68% Apply for a Job 45% 21% Upload a Resume 43% 21% Much like the employer brand, refusing to create a mobile recruiting strategy doesn t stop employers from having one. It simply becomes one they don t control. JUlian ZieSing Potentialpark Research Source: Mobile Recruiting Statistics; Marian Ignatova; 2/5/14; LinkedIn Talent Blog; http://talent.linkedin.com/blog/index. php/2014/02/mobile-recruiting-statistics-infographic Whether you are prepared for it or not, your top candidates are already visiting your career site through their mobile devices. The benefits for job seekers are clear. The ability to receive job alerts, apply to open positions quickly, and not be bound to a specific location top the list. Employers who wait to adopt mobile initiatives risk more than losing out on good candidates they risk their brand as well. 5 5. Mobile Recruitment: A Thriving Trend Amongst Job Seekers; Potentialpark Research; Nov. 2011 http://www.potentialpark.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/potentialpark-results-release-2011-mobile- Recruitment.pdf 4 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy
Organizations that fail to prepare for mobile applicants often see a reduction in the overall effectiveness of their recruiting efforts. Ads, social media and recruiting events will attract candidates to your career site, but getting them to engage with you is a different matter. Without an easy way to search for and apply to positions on mobile, many candidates abandon the process part way through. 6 This dropoff rate raises your applicant costs and reduces your return on investment. Unfortunately, many employers are simply not ready for a mobile-first recruiting strategy. Take a look at these statistics from a recent LinkedIn report: 94% 49% 87% 20% use or plan to use mobile have mobileoptimized sites think they need to improve their mobile initiatives see an improvement in candidate quality Source: Top 15 Recruiting Statistics for 2014; JP Medved; 2/20/14;Capterra Talent Blog http://blog.capterra.com/top-15-recruiting-statistics-2014/ As you can see, most companies are simply not prepared for the current mobile reality. Only 20% have sites that were designed with mobile in mind and less than 85% think they ve invested enough in their mobile initiatives. 7 Until the majority of organizations adopt mobile-first initiatives, talent brands and candidate experiences will suffer. But simply creating a mobile website is not enough. In the next sections of this document, we will look at how to create a good mobile experience, the types of mobile strategies used by top companies, and how to choose the best mobile tools for your organization. 6. 40% of Mobile Candidates Drop Non-Mobile Apply Processes; The HiringSite; Lorenz, Mary http://thehiringsite.careerbuilder.com/2013/03/11/forty-percent-of-mobile-candidates-abandon-non-mobileapplication-processes/ 7. Mobile Recruiting Statistics That Will Give You Pause 5 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy
Evaluating Your Existing Career Site Most career websites were built for traditional web browsers like Chrome, Safari and Firefox. Since computer screens are usually wider than they are tall, widescreen sites have room for columns. Forms can be filled out with a keyboard and buttons clicked with a mouse. Now, think about the last time you used a smartphone or tablet to go online. Viewing a website on a four-to-nine inch screen is a very different experience than looking at it on a full-sized monitor. Unless a site is optimized for smaller screens, there is usually a lot of pinching and zooming (plus a little hair-pulling) going on. If you re not sure if your career site is optimized for mobile, look at it from a candidate s perspective. Try applying to one of your open positions and consider the following. Does your site: Take a long time (more than 5 seconds) to load? Use large images or headers that fill up the screen? Rely on dropdown or hover menus for navigation? Have tiny links that can t easily be tapped with a finger and/or lots of popup boxes? Require applicants to zoom in to see all your content? If you answered yes to any of these questions, your site is not optimized for a mobile experience. 6 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy
Building a Mobile-Optimized Career Site As we mentioned in the previous section, viewing a site on a mobile device is very different than on a desktop. To catch and keep mobile applicants, your candidate experience needs to match their expectations. If you frustrate them with a poor UI, there s a good chance they ll leave as soon as they ve logged on. There are several options to consider when evaluating your mobile strategy. You can: a. Build a native mobile app b. Build a responsive site that automatically adjusts to fit a user s screen c. Auto-detect and redirect candidates to a standalone mobile site While building a native mobile app may seem like the best decision, it can be a costly and time-consuming mistake. A native application often takes months to create, and that s if you have the inhouse technical talent to do so. 8 Hiring a third-party developer is a possibility, but they won t have the same insight into your hiring needs as you do. And even after an app goes live, there s no guarantee it will meet your requirements. Candidates will need to Tip for Getting Started Implement a standalone mobile site to quickly kick-off your mobile initiatives. Standalone sites can be setup almost immediately, require no changes to your existing career site, and cost much less than other options. download and install it on their mobile 8. The Pros and Cons of Native Apps and Mobile Apps; About.com; Viswanathan, Priya http://mobiledevices.about.com/od/additionalresources/qt/the-pros-and-cons-of-native-apps-and- Mobile-Web-Apps.htm 7 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy
device to apply to your positions, adding additional barriers to the application process. A responsive website will automatically adjust the width and content of a website to fit a user s screen. As with a native app, this approach may initially sound like a great solution, but it does come with significant risks. First, if your site is not already using responsive design, it needs to be redesigned and recoded from scratch (not something we recommend unless you have a large budget and a lot of time). Second, you need a way to sync candidates information to your existing Application Tracking System (ATS). And finally, if you don t have a corporate career site and/or are using a Facebook Brand Page, you ll still need a website where candidates can view your positions. The approach we recommend is to create a separate standalone mobile website that syncs with your ATS. It should be able to both push your jobs out to candidates and capture mobile applicants information on the go. Ideally your career site would recognize mobile visitors and automatically redirect them to the mobile version of your career site. There are many advantages for adopting this strategy. First, it can be set up quickly, at a minimal cost. Second, it provides an easy-to-navigate design that can significantly improve engagement with and conversion of mobile users. Third, it can be integrated into your existing ATS, ensuring you don t lose applicant data during the process. In the next section, we ll discuss the importance of integrating mobile with your existing ATS. Before After 8 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy
Integrating Your Applicant Tracking System Your ATS system can be both the blessing and the curse of your social and mobile recruiting strategies. While it s an integral part of most talent management systems, it s unlikely your ATS was optimized for mobile jobseekers. Simply said, this means most mobile devices can t access application tracking systems. And even if they can, it s unlikely that they ll have an acceptable user experience. Even if your ATS isn t mobile ready, there s no reason to put the brakes on your mobile strategy. With the right solution, you can bridge the gap between your ATS and your candidates expectations. Your ATS system can be both the blessing and the curse of your mobile recruiting strategy. To be successful on mobile, your ATS needs to be able to do three important things: a. Automatically import your open positions to your mobile site b. Allow candidates to start their application and complete at their own pace c. Sync submitted applicant data with your ATS While these seem like simple actions, they re not. Most application tracking systems don t have the right technology in place to support a simple sync. To fix these issues, you need to select a mobile solution that can both pull job data from and push applicant information to your ATS. This product would act as a bridge to your ATS, complimenting its unique features and adding to its functionality. 9 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy
If you don t have an existing ATS, your standalone mobile website can send submitted applications directly to your email address. You can create a mobile form that captures the candidate s most important information so you can followup with them by email or social media. 10 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy
Improving the Candidate Experience As you experienced for yourself, there s nothing more frustrating than trying to fill out forms on a tiny, touch-sensitive screen. A long application process, even if it s optimized for mobile, is still a poor candidate experience. 9 People react positively to things that are clear and understandable. DIETER RAMS Recreating your ATS experience for smaller screens is likely to cause more problems than it solves. While some ATS vendors claim their systems are mobile compatible, few to none offer a truly mobile optimized solution. Simply mirroring its existing structure clutters your mobile design, creates inefficiencies and leads to candidate drop-offs. To be successful, your mobile solution must provide a streamlined application process with clean, easy-to-use form fields. Offering mobile users the option to start the first few steps of their application on a mobile device and complete it from their desktop will maximize conversions. Ideally, a mobile solution would integrate with Dropbox, Google Drive or another cloud-based file sharing service so a candidate can easily upload their resume and complete the process on the go. 9. Ibid. 11 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy
Social Media and Mobile Recruiting: The Perfect Pair When it comes to recruiting, the importance of social media cannot be overstated. 10 Today, over 55% of Americans report they have a profile on one or more social networks. While millennials continue to lead social media adoption, the trend is gaining momentum across all generations, with adults ages 45-65 growing at the fastest pace. But perhaps even more importantly, most users log in to social media networks with their mobile devices. Facebook is the most used at 74%, but Google and Twitter follow close behind at 56% and 48% respectively. 12 With over 1.3 billion users, 802 million of whom login daily, people spend more time on Facebook than any other Significantly more Americans (aged 12 years and up) have a social media profiles than those who do not. 11 website in the world. 13 The viral nature of social media makes it highly likely that users will share information with their connections. Companies who successfully integrate their social and mobile recruiting strategies can see a significant boost to their employer brand and a greater number of high quality applicants. In addition, organizations can encourage their employees to share open positions with their connections via mobile to further amplify their brand and drive candidate referrals. 10. Shocking New Social Media Statistics in America; Convince & Convert; Baer, Jay; http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-research/11-shocking-new-social-media-statistics-in-america/ 11. Ibid. 12. 7 Stats That Show Mobile Marketing Is Crucial for Your Business; Entrepreneur; Relander, Brett; June 10, 2014; http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/234623 13. Facebook Statistics; Statistics Brain; http://www.statisticbrain.com/facebook-statistics/ 12 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy
Summary The move towards a mobile dominated world has happened much faster than anyone could have anticipated. As more and more candidates use mobile for their job searches, employers must add mobile to their recruiting strategy or risk losing quality candidates, damaging their employer brand, and being seen as out-of-date. To take control of your mobile brand, you should consider implementing a high quality mobile recruiting solution one that ideally includes a standalone mobile site, simplified candidate experience, integration with your application tracking system, and compliments your social media recruiting strategy. See how Work4 can help you build your mobile recruiting initiatives. Visit us online at work4labs.com. Or contact us by email at contact@work4labs.com or phone at +1 (877) 509-0403.
About Work4 powers social recruiting by making everyone a recruiter and everyone a candidate. We help thousands of companies including many Fortune 500 connect with talent on social networks. Through our strategic partnerships with Facebook and Twitter, our technology transforms social networks into a source of top quality talent, enabling enterprises to extend their employer brands, drive referrals organically and target specific profiles. Our dedicated team of social recruiting experts provides ongoing best practices and advanced analytics to ensure customer success. Work4 was established in 2010 and is backed by Matrix Partners and Serena Capital. Visit us online at work4labs.com.