Top Talent is Mobile. Are You?

Top Talent is Mobile. Are You? The Rise of Mobile Technology in Talent Acquisition JOB an ebook by:

We turn to our smartphones and tablets for almost everything, and these mobile devices are well on their way to becoming the primary means for accessing the Internet. Whether searching for a place to eat, investigating what the weather is like outside, or even looking for a job, people are increasingly turning to the small screen for help. However, the rise of mobile adoption by job seekers presents a new set of challenges for employers. Having a mobile presence is imperative for an organization to be perceived as modern and forward-thinking in order to obtain top talent. In this ebook, we discuss the rise of mobile technology and how to provide a mobile candidate experience that exceeds candidate expectations. 1

Mobile: Transforming Our Online Behavior Smartphone and tablet adoption along with increased high-speed Internet access are making mobile devices a serious rival to laptops and desktops as the primary method for Internet browsing and communication. Smartphones are becoming the main online activity medium, and are increasingly used to search the web, watch videos, get news, check email, and connect on social media. In short, mobile users are constantly connected. According to Pew Internet Research: As of January 2014 for American adults 90% 58% 32% 42% Have a cell phone Aa Have a smartphone Own an e-reader Own a tablet computer Source : http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/mobile-technology-fact-sheet/ Think about your own morning routine. The first thing many people do is grab their phones, and most of us keep them within reach throughout the day. Considering the omnipresence of mobile devices, the online recruiting experience including employer career sites, application processes, employment branding content, and recruitment strategies needs to be designed with the mobile user in mind. 2

It s All about the Candidate Experience Mobile recruitment strategies play a pivotal role in achieving hiring objectives and increasing employer brand awareness. For example, mobile recruiting helps engage candidates who may otherwise fall through the cracks as well as passive candidates who might casually explore their options on-the-go. Consider a person commuting on a train: if that person sees an interesting job on a social network, job board, or email, it s more likely that he or she will complete the application at that moment. If that person needs to return to a desktop to apply, he or she may never return to the job posting. Impact of Mobile Recruitment on the Business Percentage of Respondents, n=234 25% Customer Retention 15% 23% Customer Satisfaction 11% 22% Time to hire 7% 16% $ Cost per hire 8% 8% Mobile is used Mobile is not used Source : Aberdeen Group, July 2013 Making it possible to apply for a position or provide information for a company s talent pool on a mobile device is more likely to result in better apply rates and candidate engagement. This, coupled with a strong employment brand, helps drive quality talent to an organization. Furthermore, allowing candidates to upload resumes from their device, Dropbox account, Google Drive account, or giving them the option to save and complete their applications later can reduce your drop-off rate and make for a better candidate experience. 3

With all this in mind, if your website isn t mobile-optimized to accommodate the growing number of job candidates who are searching from a tablet or smart phone, you re most likely losing talent to your competitors and harming your employment brand. The implications are obvious: mobile is quickly becoming the primary tool that will bring candidates, employees, and employers together. Better Branding Social Media Optimizations $ MOBILE RECRUITMENT Candidate Engagement Return On Investment 4

Employers are Falling Behind in Mobile Recruitment Given the proliferation of mobile devices, mobile job searching is growing rapidly. According to a Glassdoor survey, 9 in 10 job seekers say they will user their mobile device during the job search process in the next 12 months and 45% of job seekers report using their mobile device to search for jobs at least once a day. 1 This is exciting news for talent acquisition departments looking to extend their employment brand through additional channels. For example, according to a recent study by Aberdeen Group, 70% of respondents said they have used their mobile devices to search for jobs, and 51% are already applying for jobs on mobile. 2 The Use of Mobile Recruitment Percentage of Respondents, n=234 80% JOB Search for Jobs 70% Job Post browsing 63% Uploading a LinkedIn profile to apply for a job 58% Apply for jobs by submitting applications 51% All Respondents Source : Aberdeen Group, July 2013 However, many organizations still do not have any mobile-compatible career portals or job listings. This may be a significant deterrent for mobile job seekers to apply to these organizations at all. 1 http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/9-10-job-seekers-search-jobs-mobile-glassdoor-state-mobile-job-search-survey/ 2 http://v1.aberdeen.com/launch/report/perspective/8586-ai-mobile-recruitment-strategy.asp?lan=us 5

A mobile-friendly application process can increase your conversion rates by providing the candidates with a simple application experience. According to a Careerbuilder candidate behavior study, 65% of workers who search for jobs via mobile devices will leave a website if it isn't mobile-optimized, and 40% walk away with a more negative opinion of the company. Since candidates are more likely to abandon sites that aren t mobile-optimized, it s critical for organizations to embrace mobile to attract top talent. Simply Hired recently reported that 86% of job seekers would use their smartphone for job searching if the capabilities were available. When asked, here s how those job seekers indicated they would use mobile for landing a position: 55% want to receive alerts JOBS 45% want to apply for jobs 45% be able to track application status 23% share information via email 19% share information through social networks http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/infographic-how-jobseekers-smartphones-use-them-searchjobs/ The writing is on the wall: job seekers are eagerly embracing mobile as a way to search and apply for jobs. If employers want to win the war for top talent, they must provide a seamless experience between their online site and their mobile presence to attract potential candidates. 3 http://thehiringsite.careerbuilder.com/2013/10/21/no-mobile-optimized-site-job-seekers-think-less/ 6

JOB 80% of interent users own a smartphone Almost 3 billion people, 40% of the world's population, are using the Internet. Source: Internet Live Stats (elaboration of data by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and United Nations Population Division) GlobalWebIndex Q3 2014 7

Social Recruitment is Mobile Most organizations have adopted social media and developed social recruiting strategies to attract and recruit top talent. Often overlooked however, is the fact that most social media consumption is done on a mobile device. Almost two-thirds (64%) of overall social media users say they use social media sites at least once a day via their computer, and almost half (47%) of smartphone owners visit social networks every day. 3 Social Media Sites Where Job Seekers Expect to Find Jobs 62% Job Seekers believe that LinkedIn is the best place to look for a job. 16% 15% 5% 1% 1% LinkedIn Facebook Google+ None Instagram Twitter X Source: http://www.icims.com/hire-expectations-institute/for-employers/ebook_insight-into-the-mind-of-todays-job-seeker-ebook 3 http://www.icims.com/hire-expectations-institute/for-employers/ebook_insight-into-the-mind-of-todays-job-seeker-ebook 8

When incorporating mobile-optimized career portals, social media can help employers reach talent faster. 30% of LinkedIn s user base are visiting LinkedIn on a mobile device +40% Americans - 128 million people visit Facebook. Of those daily visitors, about 79%, or 101 million, use a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet to access the service. 80% of Twitter users log in via mobile devices. Source= http://socialmediatoday.com/1746341/20-amazing-twitter-stats?utm_ source=hootsuite&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign%20value=hootsuite_tweets Source= http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/our-daily-cup-of-facebook/?_r=0 Source= http://www.globalrecruitingroundtable.com/2013/01/22/linkedin-facts-figures-2013/#.ujttvmbktyk Today s top candidates are using their mobile devices to tweet, share status updates, and edit their LinkedIn profiles. As more job seekers use their mobile devices to check their social media accounts, it s important for recruiters to broaden their social media recruitment initiatives. Many recruiters already utilize social media job distribution tools and company career sites on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to attract and source top talent. However, candidates who find your jobs on their mobile devices want to stay on their mobile devices, which is why mobile-optimized job postings, career sites, and portals are essential to keeping candidates engaged. In short, if your social recruiting strategy isn t part of an overall end-to-end mobile recruiting strategy that involves social AND mobile optimized job postings, you re likely to create a frustrating candidate experience, lose the conversation, and potentially harm your employment brand. Simply stated, recruiting needs to be mobile to reach social media users. 9

Each day more job seekers are applying for jobs using mobile devices. Desktop usage decreased by 7.5% Mobile & tablet usage increased by 60% Source: Analysis of a sample of +200 million jobs posted by icims customers in 2014 vs. 2013 Conversion to apply via mobile has increased 238% in 2014 vs. 2013 Mobile bounce rate* is down by 62% If you already offer candidates a fully mobile experience, try it out yourself! Get out your smartphone and apply to your organization. Ideally, the full application experience should take less than 15 minutes, allowing you to easily complete relevant information and upload and parse a resume. Make sure that you can also easily save and return to the same application later from a computer or ipad, just in case. If you are not already providing a mobile application experience, you re potentially losing fantastic talent! Make sure that your career portal is mobile optimized through responsive design technology, which provides a smooth candidate application experience no matter what technology the candidate uses. In June 2013, Google also stated that the use of responsive design should have a positive impact on website SEO. *Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page. Bounce rate is a standard measure of visit quality. A high bounce rate generally indicated that the site entrance pages are not relevant to your visitor. A decrease in bounce rate indicates that more visitors are finding more relevant content and remaining on the site longer. 10

Best Practice Checklist for Building a Mobile Recruitment Strategy Provide Mobile-Optimized Career Sites: The career and job listing sections of your website should be capable of being viewed on any device. Offer a Candidate-Friendly Application Process: Allow candidates to upload and edit resumes and cover letters via mobile devices or tablets. Provide job seekers with the opportunity to track their application status on their smartphone. Enable Social Sharing: Allow current employees and job seekers to easily share your open positions with friends via email and social networks. Develop an Employment Branding Strategy: Have a consistent, well-branded company presence on key social networks, which job seekers are likely to turn to when using mobile devices to access company information. This includes sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. Leverage social networks to seek active and passive candidates. Make Yourself Available: Offer opportunities for job seekers to register with one click to indicate their interest in your company or receive an email with more information on the company, open jobs, and contact information through a Recruitment Maketing Automation tool. Allow job seekers to receive email notification when new jobs open up. Measure: The ability to measure the success of the mobile strategy is necessary to constantly improve it. To ensure positive results, measure and track the candidate sources that are performing best for each type of role, which will enable the employer to meet specific objectives and achieve maximum return on investment. 11

How icims can Help The icims Talent Platform provides organizations with the tools to succeed in the mobile talent marketplace. Due to the mobile-optimized Career Portals that come standard with icims Recruit, our Platform is the ideal tool to meet corporation s mobile recruiting needs. icims can help you make sense of mobile recruiting in a world of multiple handsets with multiple screen sizes. icims products offer the following tools to support your mobile recruitment needs: All icims-hosted Career Portals are mobile-optimized to automatically accommodate the appropriate viewing experience whether the candidate is on a desktop, smartphone, or tablet. In addition to the device-friendly experience available, candidates can now upload their resumes or documents straight from their device, Google Drive account, or Dropbox account. Availability of multiple Career Portals to support unique branding, or different recruiting strategies such as part-time or university hiring. Social Recruitment tools that allow recruiters to leverage popular social networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter to post jobs and encourage employee referrals. Share Search Apply icims Social Distribution is part of an end-to-end mobile experience provided by the icims Talent Platform. Candidates will have the ability to conveniently share, search, and apply for jobs within a responsive, branded, environment that automatically accommodates the appropriate viewing experience whether the candidate is on a desktop, smartphone, or tablet. Using icims Connect, attract and engage candidates who may not yet be ready to apply for a job, but are interested in the company s employment brand. Leverage powerful recruitment marketing capabilities to communicate relevant company information to your talent pools. Saas Software-as-a-Service software model providing 24/7 worldwide access to the icims Platform. Award-winning three-tier customer service model, providing personalized support 24 hours per day, 5 days per week. As you are planning for social recruiting campaigns, remember to think mobile. If you haven t established a mobile and social recruiting strategy, icims can help you find the tools you need to bring in top talent from any device. 12

https://www.icims.com GO To learn more about how icims can help your organization go mobile, call us at (800) 888-4422 or take a look at an online virtual tour of icims Talent Platform: Learn More Got it Connect with us!