Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy - Work4 Labs Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy Whether you are prepared for it or not, your top candidates are already visiting

Developing Your

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Mobile Recruiting Strategy

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

Table of Contents

3 Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy

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:

1. IDC: Mobile Internet Use to Pass PCs by 2015; PC Magazine; Hachman, Mark; Sept. 12, 2011http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392796,00.asp

2. Mobile APPeal; New Relic; Shevchik, Leighhttp://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, 2014http://talent.linkedin.com/blog/index.php/2014/02/mobile-recruiting-statistics-infographic

4. Ibid.

Introduction

• 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 ...


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

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:

Moving to Mobile

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

5. Mobile Recruitment: A Thriving Trend Amongst Job Seekers; Potentialpark Research; Nov. 2011http://www.potentialpark.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Potentialpark-Results-Release-2011-Mobile-Recruitment.pdf

Look at a Company’s Career Site

Active

Passive

Active

Passive

Active

Passive

Active

Passive

Look at Openings on Social Networking Sites

Apply for a Job

Upload a Resume

72%62%

64%68%

45%21%

43%21%

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


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 drop-

off 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:

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-mobile-application-processes/

7. Mobile Recruiting Statistics That Will Give You Pause

Source: Top 15 Recruiting Statistics for 2014; JP Medved; 2/20/14;Capterra Talent Blog http://blog.capterra.com/top-15-recruiting-statistics-2014/

use or plan to use mobile

see an improvement in candidate quality

think they need to improve their mobile initiatives

have mobile- optimized sites

49%94% 20%87%


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.

Evaluating Your Existing 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

Building a Mobile-Optimized Career Site

8. The Pros and Cons of Native Apps and Mobile Apps; About.com; Viswanathan, Priyahttp://mobiledevices.about.com/od/additionalresources/qt/The-Pros-And-Cons-Of-Native-Apps-And-Mobile-Web-Apps.htm

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.

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 in-

house 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

download and install it on their mobile


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 fi t a user’s screen. As with a native app, this approach may initially sound like

a great solution, but it does come with signifi cant 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 fi nally, 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


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.

Your ATS system can be both the blessing and the curse of your mobile recruiting strategy.

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.

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.


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 follow-

up with them by email or social media.


Improving the Candidate Experience

9. Ibid.

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

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.

People react positively to things that are clear and understandable.

DIETER RAMS


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.

Social Media and Mobile Recruiting: The Perfect Pair

10. Shocking New Social Media Statistics in America; Convince & Convert; Baer, Jay; http://www.convinceandco-nvert.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/23462313. Facebook Statistics; Statistics Brain; http://www.statisticbrain.com/facebook-statistics/

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

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.

Significantly more Americans (aged 12 years and up) have a social media profiles than those who do not.11

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 [email protected]

or phone at +1 (877) 509-0403.

Summary

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.

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Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy - Work4 Labs Developing Your Mobile Recruiting Strategy Whether you are prepared for it or not, your top candidates are already visiting

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