Recruiting in a Mobile Whirlwind

The average person spends 90 minutes a day on his or her phone, which amounts to 23 days out of a year spent looking at a mobile screen. In 2013, 72 percent of active candidates (and 62 percent of passive candidates) viewed career sites from their mobile device and those numbers are only expected to grow as more and more technological advances are made.

Surprisingly, the number of companies with mobile-friendly websites and career pages is lackluster. In fact, the only thing impressive about the statistics is how many of the Fortune 500 don’t have a mobile optimized site. A report done by iMomentous found that only 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies allow job seekers to apply on a mobile device.

The biggest fact to keep in mind: Even if a career site isn’t ready to be translated to a mobile screen, it will still be reachable to those who search. In other words, your site will be seen, it won’t look good and applicants might get frustrated. Last year, 46 percent of searchers  used mobile devices exclusively. In fact, 89 percent of job seekers not only use their mobile device to search for new positions, but rely on them.

Mobile-Optimized, Responsive, M(dot) – Oh My!

Being up to date on what all this mobile speak means is a great place to start. The words are spoken enough to be considered “buzz”, but what do they actually mean? Though they are used interchangeably, they all have separate meanings:

• Mobile-optimized: This mobile friendly site is built to be viewed from a desktop, but can still be viewed (comfortably) from a mobile device without losing the integrity of the design.

• Mobile website: This website is made specifically for mobile viewing. When a user visits your website from their mobile device, he or she is redirected to this site, which usually features bigger text and buttons.

• Responsive site: The name of this web solution gives its functionality away. A responsive site detects the size of the device from which it’s being viewed and adapts the text, images, design, etc. It is especially helpful to have a responsive design for email tools as more and more people are checking email on the go.

• M(dot): Everything about this type of website is mobile. The site’s domain includes an “m.” before the “www.” as the name suggests. The site is usually built for touch screen devices and includes less text and more imagery.  With a responsive site, m(dot) is usually unnecessary.

How Mobile is Your Application Process

Once a mobile site is established, recruiters should consider an application process being integrated. About half of job seekers take to the internet in their searches for employment. Forty percent of job seekers will abandon an application if they encounter a part (aside from the interview) that isn’t mobile-friendly.

In fact, 42 percent prefer to upload their resume and complete their application online, while 38 percent preferring email. That leaves a very small percentage still using conventional resources (in-store kiosks and mail-ins).

Forty-six percent of visitors will not return to a website if it was not mobile friendly when they first searched for it. In other words, if you aren’t accommodating mobile viewers, you are missing out on huge opportunities in your recruiting ventures. The world of mobile recruiting is not going away; in fact, 89 percent of job seekers not only use their mobile device to search for new positions, but rely on them.

Having a mobile-friendly site is usually in the hands of big wigs in a company, so an effort toward responsive web designs may not be in your hands. However, all departments, whether the company is large or small, will benefit from the change. Tools like video interviewing, cloud storage with Dropbox and Evernote and importable profiles are great ways to speed up your application process while heightening your chance of good hires.

Here’s the time to be honest: how would you feel as a job seeker standing in the coffee shop line with your smartphone, browsing the company website? Would you want to apply for a position? Would you be able to even see if positions were available?