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Part 1: Three Common Myths about Mobile Recruitment: Busted!
Posted by Matt Adam on September 8th, 2016 
Did you know that globally, there are more mobile devices than people?
Now is that a stat that gets your attention or what? Mobile is not the future, it’s now. If you are having trouble coming to terms with this fact; I get it. We’ve just got up to speed on search engines and social media and job aggregators and now we’re expecting you to recalibrate again. But if you are not leveraging mobile, you are already behind.
Some may argue that mobile doesn’t have a place in our world – the world of recruiting. Or, that this is not a concern in the here and now. Let’s take a closer look at some of these arguments.
Myth #1: No one searches for jobs on mobile devices.
This myth says, “Yes, I acknowledge that mobile is big, but it’s used for playing Angry Birds and Candy Crush, not for serious business like finding a career.”
This is simply false. The numbers do not lie, and the numbers reveal that mobile job search traffic doubles every year. With 2.3 million Google searches per second and more than 1.15 million of those being performed via mobile devices, the number of job searches being performed via mobile is astronomical. In fact, according to a Glassdoor research survey, 9 in 10 job seekers search for jobs via mobile and 45% of those respondents said they use their mobile device to search for jobs at least once a day.
The bottom line is candidates do indeed search via mobile, and you simply can’t afford to ignore one of the largest sources of potential candidates.
Myth #2: No one comes to our career site via a mobile device.
Again, this is categorically false. Most of the organizations we work with report 50+ percent of their career site traffic coming from mobile. This is an analytic we’ve been tracking for the past several years, and the numbers increase practically on a monthly basis.
What this means is that you need to serve up an experience to these visitors that is engaging and optimized to that particular device. If you don’t know what I mean by “optimized for mobile,” consider this: People don’t consume information the same on a desktop as they do from their phones. You must adapt the experience or you will lose candidates.
Myth #3: Candidates don’t want to be bothered on their mobile devices.
Yes, people are extremely particular about who they connect with and how they are contacted on their phone. Communicating with candidates on mobile has to be consensual, and it has to be on their terms. There is no outreach I recommend that does not have the full permission of the person on the other end of the line and is not respectful of how they wish to communicate with you.
With that being said, I will counter this myth by saying that candidates who want to learn about opportunities at your organization are typically open to having that communication via their mobile phone. So, for the ones who are actively interested, increasingly they are fine communicating via their mobile phone.
The mobile device and all that comes with it – texting, e-mail, social media, search, apps – is how people stay connected nowadays. When it’s easy for candidates to connect with your career site through mobile devices, you’re a step ahead of your competition.
Next week: Does your career site pass the mobile performance test?
Matt Adam
Matt Adam serves as Executive Vice President & Chief Talent Strategist for NAS. Having spent 20 years as a recruitment strategy consultant for a diverse client roster, Matt has worked with a wide variety of organizations to develop effective recruitment marketing strategies that define and shape an organization’s recruiting efforts in today's interactive marketplace. He is a featured speaker at various organizations including SHRM, CUPA and NAHCR.
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