More then half of the world’s population has a phone. In Germany three out of four people owns a smart device, yet fewer than 50% of Germany’s DAX (index of the 30 largest stock-listed companies) allows candidates to view a job listing on their smartphone. Isn’t that shocking? With smartphone penetration and mobile internet on the rise, it is time for recruitment processes to catch-up. We should embrace mobile throughout the recruitment value chain, from initial orientation to actual application and screening. It still puzzles me that most recruiters will have a smartphone and will use it for almost everything except when they enter their recruiter-mode, interaction with candidates suddenly is limited to calling. They do not realize that calling is a side-feature of a phone nowadays. It’s time for a wake-up call!
It’s simple really. Here’s your chance to start using mobile throughout your recruitment funnel. Below are some tips on how to enter mobile reality and offer job candidates exactly what they want when it comes to orientation, application and selection:
A study by Nottingham Trent University has discovered that the average person checks their device 85 times a day, spending a total of five hours browsing the web and using apps. According to the German Mobile Recruiting Study 2015 by Wollmilchsau, a digital agency specialized in job marketing and employer branding, roughly half of all recruitment sites are mobile optimized. That means that this massive population of mobile addicts, browsing, liking and sharing, will not be able to browse, like and share your jobs. Compared to your total recruitment spend, making your jobs accessible on mobile most certainly not make the biggest dent in your budget. What are you waiting for?
The same study by Wollmilchsau indicated that roughly 80% of the job application forms are not mobile optimized. WOW! This means that even if your target applicants were able to find your job on a mobile, you have made it so job candidates have to leave their application and accept a low conversion. Why? By the time these interested talents find a PC to access your application form, they may have had one too many impulses already and totally forgotten about your job posting. It is not like there is a surplus of talent available, can you really afford to miss these great candidates? Every day, people tell me stories of how hard it is to find good candidates, which is why they spend so much money and effort finding them. Quite often they use specialized agencies who have their own mobile enabled platforms to reach great talent. My advice: get yourself an applicant tracking system (ATS) that features mobile application forms and if that is not possible, build a mobile application form and use it as a front door to your outdated ATS.
Selection of candidates is always a difficult task. You are looking at CV’s, motivation letters and professional profiles, but still feel you are making a selection based on an incomplete set of information. Mobile does not even seem to be a relevant topic. Candidates are processed from phone screen to on-site interview almost immediately. Did you ever think of adding a video interview? It is a great way to make a better selection and it is mobile too! At Cammio we see already on average over 30% of all candidates completing their video interview on a smart device and this percentage is increasing every month. With some projects we even see over 50% of candidates completing their interview on mobile, and this is actually across all age groups. The smartphone has democratized digital recruiting by putting a computer with built-in webcam and microphone, in everyone’s hands, not just the white collar workers that traditionally owned a PC. Today, you can reach almost anyone on a smartphone, webcam included. Ideal when you want to ask a candidate to present themselves with video or ask some questions with video before you invite the candidate for an on-site interview. Better yet, it beats hitting voicemails and rescheduling when trying to conduct a phone interview.
Behave like your candidates. Interact with them in their time using the technology that is readily available to everyone with the smartphone in their purse or pocket. Happy Hiring!
