By Scott Robarge: The Head of Industry for Recruitment at Google, Emma Frazer was recently interviewed by Web Based Recruitment for the October 23rd Mobile Recruitment Conference in London. Google’s latest search figures on the use of mobile by job seekers suggest that 1 in 5 are now using their phone to look for potential opportunities. While 20% may not seem like a lot to some, it’s a clear indicator of the increased role mobile devices are playing in our everyday lives.
“Job seekers want to be able to search for a job anytime, anyplace, anywhere and not just via a desktop anymore” said Mike Taylor from Web Based Recruitment. “The proportion of mobile search figures will only get bigger in the future and the challenge now for Recruiters is to make sure that they are in a position to offer a mobile-friendly experience to job seekers to keep up with the demand.” (http://www.prweb.com/releases/mobile-recruitment/google-searches/prweb10013092.htm).
Taylor also felt that while the search figures certainly show the use of mobile trending up, most companies aren’t providing job seekers with a mobile friendly website to view and apply for jobs. “A couple of weeks ago we completed a review which showed that 94% of FTSE 100 companies failed to offer a mobile-enabled careers section to help job seekers easily navigate and search for jobs.Clearly with 1 in 5 recruitment searches now being made via a mobile device these FTSE 100 companies will risk damaging their brand and reputation, as well as potentially losing candidates to their competitors, unless they quickly do something about it.”
Another point that was covered in the interview was the opportunity cost of not having a mobile rich experience for job seekers. Apparently 40% who visited a site via mobile that wasn’t mobile enabled, and thus had a bad experience,said they would go to a competitor that did value a positive mobile experience.
Taylor also points out that with companies now seeing roughly 30% of the total traffic to their web site coming via mobile devices the time is now to make a change. “Therereally is no excuse for companies not knowing how many mobile visitors they get to their website as the information is readily available within their website analytics data. Once companies have an understanding of the data, the next step is to plan a mobile recruitment strategy to ensure that visitors can easily search for jobs, as this is what job seekers will be expecting from now on.”
As the founder of Another8, a technology recruiting consultancy, I find more and more candidates are using mobile devices to search for jobs. Many companies are developing native mobile apps or utilizing HTML5 to streamline the experience for visitors using their phones or tablets to look for new career opportunities.
About Scott Robarge
Scott Robarge is a founder of Another8 Solutions, a results-driven recruiting consultancy specializing in talent acquisition and retention strategies for technology companies.
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