Most Job Seekers Want Mobile Yet Few Employers Seem to Care

I’ve advocated for years that employers need to re-think how they’re communicating on-line with candidates because more and more of those candidates are using their cell phones as their primary connection device and not land lines, desktop computers, or even laptop computers.

It never ceases to amaze me how high a percentage of hiring managers, recruiters, and other human resource professionals have NEVER visited their own web sites using an iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, or other smartphone and how few of those who have visited their sites have never attempted to actually apply to a job using their mobile phone. Those who have realize almost without exception very, very quickly that they can’t. And when they see that typically 10 to 15 percent of their career site visitors are using mobile devices, you can see in their faces that they know they have a big problem that is getting bigger very quickly.

Online recruitment research company Potentialpark just released perhaps the most comprehensive research that reveals what candidates actually think of mobile recruitment rather than just opinions from advocates like me. Potentialpark surveyed 30,000 job seekers worldwide and looked at the mobile presence of over 350 of the main employers across Europe, Asia and the United States.

The data shows that 19 percent of job seekers are already using their mobile devices to search for a new job and that more than 50 percent of those surveyed envision doing so in the future. The study also revealed that 57 percent want to use their mobile devices to proactively search for vacancies and 51 percent would like to receive job match alerts to their phones. In addition some 30 percent are willing to apply for jobs through their mobiles and 39 percent would like to use their mobiles to track applications, learn about the recruitment process, and keep up-to-date with career events.

Employers who have implemented a mobile strategy are still few and far between. Only seven percent of employers have a mobile website even though that’s probably the lowest of the low hanging mobile marketing fruit and only three percent have a mobile application. Incidentally, I feel mobile job search apps are a waste of resources for the vast majority of employers as users need to install them and likely would use them only once. Employers should, however, create mobile apps but target their use to current employees who want instant access to HR-related information such as payroll, benefits, and other such information.