Taking recruitment to the streets

Job seekers are already using mobile technology to search and apply for jobs, and would like to use it more, according to a white paper published by Simply Hired – a US jobs search engine. Their figures show that 70% of job hunters use mobile technology to search for jobs and that 86% would like to apply for jobs directly from their mobile devices – if it were easy.

“Today, the biggest hurdle mobile job seekers face is lack of an easy application process. Only seven percent of employers have a mobile version of their career website, and only three percent have a mobile app,” James Beriker, CEO – Simply Hired, said in the report.

In New Zealand, mobile recruitment among corporates appears to be in its nascence. “To be honest, this is all work in progress as we are currently working through mobile optimisation of our careers site and other apps,” an internal recruiter from a large corporate told HRM. The same recruiter said that he had not seen an example of a New Zealand corporate succeeding at mobile recruitment, apart from job boards such as SEEK and TradeMe.

Recruiters at Warehouse Stationery are also just beginning to tackle mobile recruitment. “We are at the start of our mobile journey. We don’t currently receive applications from mobile devices due to our ATS [applicant tracking system] not providing this functionality,” said Leslie Taylor, employment brand and recruitment manager – Warehouse Stationery. Taylor is in the process of receiving approval for a mobile careers site.

Contrary to the figures reported by Simply Hired, Taylor noted that visits from a mobile device to Warehouse Stationery’s careers site were relatively low, less than 17%. “However, as mobile devices become more prevalent this will rise and we want to ensure we have the technology to support these users,” she said.

Low mobile device visits were also the experience of another internal recruiter with a large New Zealand employer. “At this stage we are not unduly concerned that we are missing out on applicants given high application numbers, our strong employment brand, and the lack of competitors who have effectively actioned a mobile strategy,” she said. However, like Taylor, she was keen to adapt to the change when it occurred and was closely monitoring mobile engagement.

Challenges facing recruiters currently include the expense of making existing careers sites responsive to mobile devices, the fact that ATS systems are not mobile optimised, and various security issues.

Having recognised this, a social recruitment firm based in New Zealand, Social Sauce, has partnered with a mobile technology company SnapHop to provide a mobile recruitment platform.”[This is] New Zealand’s first mobile recruitment platform allowing any enterprise to make existing job listings useful for smartphone users,” according to Kirsti Grant, founder – Social Sauce.