In 2002 the Recruitment Sales Director of eminent national newspaper took me out to lunch to show me their new “WAP” recruitment site. After an hour of him frantically pushing the buttons on his funky Nokia phone (which looked a bit like a brick) he gave up trying to connect saying the immortal and strangely familiar words – “It was working fine this morning”. Then, with the benefit of the short-term memory capability possessed only by media sales professionals and goldfish, he proceeded to tell me WAP was the future and next year would be the “Year of Mobile Recruitment”. I told him he was talking rubbish, he told me I lacked vision.
Every year since then I’ve had at least one similar meeting, SMS Advertising, Text Back Services, Short Codes, MMS, GPRS, 2G, I’ve been there had the lunch, bought the T-Shirt and been very underwhelmed by their eventual non effect on the recruitment industry.
I’ve also personally tried to help this revolution take place. Back in 2005 my team were experimenting with SMS advertising for the Met Police and we also ran an edgy mobile campaign for Sainsbury’s that ended up upsetting the Daily Mail (proving mobile was good for something!). Like everything else I’ve seen touted as the next big thing in mobile recruitment though they were just short lived fads that didn’t change anything.
At this point I have to be clear I believe that not only is recruitment going to go mobile but also that the job seekers out there are already demanding it. The arrival and growing uptake of smartphones has finally taken the technological barriers away. We also have to consider how mobile is already supporting the “traditional” recruitment process. SMS is so embedded into the UK business and social psyche, we tend to forget that we’ve actually been doing the kind of “mobile recruiting” our peers in the US are currently debating, for years!
So what’s the problem? Why am I so sure 2011 isn’t the year of mobile? Well there is a vital link in the chain still missing and no one is focusing on it. We know there are huge amounts of mobile traffic out there and all the major job boards are reporting a massive uplift in visits from smart phones. However I don’t think feeding this demand with yet more “me to” job search apps is the answer. Giving mobile job seekers access to even more mostly poorly written job ads with no opportunity to find out more, get context or take action just seems like madness!
As far as I’m concerned we will move no further forward until employers make their corporate career sites and application processes work properly for mobile. This year won’t be the year of mobile because at the moment most employers aren’t even thinking about it.
At a recent conference I asked an audience of over 200 in-house recruitment professionals how many of them knew what their recruitment website looked like on a iPhone, only one person put their hand up! At the same conference someone told me I was an idiot because “people are not interested in applying for jobs on their mobile phones”. My answer would be how do we know that if we’re currently not giving them the chance to do it!
So do I lack vision, am I an idiot, have I just pointed out the elephant in the room or do I just have a different definition of Mobile Recruitment to everyone else?
I’d love to know what you think………..
January 27th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Great post Matt,
Totally agree with you for a couple of different reasons.
1. The majority of career sites have a really crap user experience and would have no chance o converting that to a mobile experience.
2. Contrary to what many app builders believe, the majority phone for job seekers is not an iPhone (IMO). So just having an iPhone app (and maybe android) severely limits the candidate pool, and therefore a meaningful process. (That obviously assumes the apparently is any good in the first place!)
It was good to see some comment from #emconf2011 saying that the way forward is mobile sites – at least there was some sanity there.
You are right Mr Futurologist, mobile will move forward in 2011 but it won’t be the year of the mobile just yet, will it?
Andy
(Who has finally moved from a Blackberry to an Android in the hope of finding some good recruitment apps to test – not found one yet!!)
January 27th, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Mobile sites :: just little websites, aren’t they?
I developed the first sand most popular iPhone job app, and I agree too (albeit for different reasons).
I’ll come back later & say why, because I can’t write so fast on this phone.
January 27th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
I think one of the big aspects we’re all still forgetting too is the strength of the infrastructure mobile uses. Just yesterday I was sat with a colleague who was saying that while the cloud is a great way if working, if they can’t get mobile reception, they can’t get at their files (ok, I know that if you can get wifi you can, but we were on a train that didn’t have wifi).
And it’s the same for the year of the mobile. When it works (I.e. When you have a strong signal and / or wireless), it is a valid alternative, but sadly the mobile networks are pretty inconsistent in coverage, and this becomes even more of an issue in a building, where coverage is often poorer.
I love the new freedom my mobile gives me, but it also frustrates me too often for me to seriously consider it my primary route. And until the network changes, it always will.
But, from a hardware perspective, it’s very much the year of the mobile. Let’s hope the networks catch up soon before people lose faith.
Phew, back to Phil and Kirsty now.
January 27th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Hi Matt,
i don’t think this year is the year either in fact next is also looking a bit optimistic. Although i do think more recruitment and HR businesses are aware of mobile. My view is also that a proper mobile site will be better value and serve candidates better than an app. The biggest barrier at the moment is applying to vacancies, how does someone add there CV? Also with the vast array of mobile devices coming on to the market people need to think about the whole UX not just on a phone but also Netbooks, Tablets etc. Most mobile sites its find a job email it and apply later. Setting up accounts is slow as well.
This might not fit closely but i think sites should consider adding 3rd party API’s in so people can sign in with existing accounts be it Twitter, FB, LinkedIn using some of these you might even be able to pull in enough data to apply to a job!
With regard to Corporates i think they should make use of social channels more they already have the followers and the social sites already make the apps, so that looks like a ready made pool of passive candidates engaged in the brand? Sort the application process out and your on to a winner ( that’s the tricky bit in my view).
Mobile probably fits closely with social media everyone knows about it, has an opinion but not many are getting it right yet.
January 27th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
I have seen how your mobile vision can and will be executed, I have tested if from an applicant point of view (via a smart phone) and can show you tomorrow. GW
PS – I will be giving a client a live demo next Thursday.
January 27th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Great post Matt and fully agree. Mobile websites have to be the foundation. If a company then wants to take it further and provide apps for those out there who do prefer use of apps to mobile sites (smaller in number but I know a couple), then great. But get the basics right first.
Matt Brookes – fully agree about 3rd party signups too. Pulling in data from an online profile is the best way to deal with the problem of data entry and document storage on mobile (yes I know some phones allow document store now, but it’s not easy!).
January 27th, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Thanks for the comments everyone. Great to see some sensible informed debate on the topic!
January 27th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
I think it was 2002 when I ran my first mobile recruitment campaign, as head of recruitment marketing for a big UK technology / media firm. On that occasion I was fortunate to have a ‘future media’ team who had spent time understanding user behaviour when using mobile in comparison to the web / email (which was mostly PC based at the time). We used SMS in a highly selective manner promoting niche campus events about 3-5 hours in advance to students living near the event who had registered to our marketing database. It worked well and we probably got 30% of attendees using this method. Mobile then was SMS.
I’m still convinced that designing by understanding job-seeking behaviour, and how technology is integrated into off-line behaviour is the way to get a great mobile experience. It’s been fascinating over the last 4-5 years studying how job-seekers use various technology around the world trying to envisage how mobile fits into job-search. I think over the last 18 months we’re finally getting to a stage where mobile may be possible. Interestingly it might just be to remove control / visibilty of corporate IT to at-work job seeking.
Like Gareth, I think Matthew is right that public profiles probably play a part in the application process. My gut feeling is that the applicant on seeing a job has a two-way choice: either apply from a PC later or get a referral in from someone in their network. I can’t see company-level apps being of interest to most job-seekers purely as an application tool.
As always, experience labs and usability testing are the way of really understanding the issue. If you’re running a global site you need to do this in each major market, or at least use reliably proxies.
Thinking back to 2002 a key scenario that guided our thinking was that by now a large proportion of the population would interact with companies over the web using game consoles.
As always, the weak point on the chain for most companies is the ATS.
January 27th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Right I’m back.
Matthew Brookes makes most of my points. At 1Job.co.uk we experienced fantastic PR with our UKJOBS app, and saw steady growth in mobile traffic (apps and mobile sites) up to around 7% of our current 780k monthly uniques. However, we know fine well that these click-throughs are very unlikely to apply via their mobile device.
The days of continually uploading documents must be numbered, as I see no reason why applications can’t be made with one’s Linkedin profile. It doesn’t take much to remember your Li address, and use it in job applications.
Candidates are indeed keen on mobile job searching (and applying, if they could), but job boards seem reluctant to encourage this (aside from some key players like Jobsite). Oddly, many are making a meal of building a miniature and optimised site for small screens, when it’s really not that difficult.
I’ve learned since 2000 that predictions in this sector take much longer to transpire, so whilst 2011 will be the year of the mobile, mobile recruitment won’t mature until later.
Conversely, clever major employers will be better able to manage flexible workforces by using mobile sites, apps and even SMS. The growing temp market (and soft perms) will help to push this.
January 28th, 2011 at 7:11 am
Hi Matt,
Just one thought from a technically-savvy senior exec who’s currently seeking new challenges.
I want to be able to read the advert and recruitment pack comfortably, review and possibly tailor my cv, and then write a compelling cover letter. Before sending, I want to review documentation to check layout.
I think my iphone is too small this. On the other hand, I would find it possible to do all this on my iPad which is that bit larger. Connectivity remains an issue.
I think that 2011 will be the year of the tablet although widespread adoption may take time in the current economic climate. This will give developers time to optimise user experience.
In summary, I agree with you that 2011 is not the year of mobile recruitment.
January 28th, 2011 at 8:37 am
“Giving mobile job seekers access to even more mostly poorly written job ads with no opportunity to find out more, get context or take action just seems like madness!”
Thoroughly agree Matt (shock, horror). It is pointless overkill. The only people laughing are the mobile phone network providers who are cashing in on the mobile apps fervour, but recruitment needn’t go mobile until the offering is different and more coherent and alluring than what is currently on the job boards.
One other thing, 5 point text really doesn’t do it for me. If I were searching for a job I’d far rather do it from the comfort of my own home using a reasonable sized screen. As I tweeted yesterday. opticians everywhere must be rubbing their hands in glee.
Mobile recruitment? Yes, potentially interesting, but not if it just transfers the same bad habits/poor job ads to the small screen.
January 28th, 2011 at 8:40 am
The informed debate is all well and good, but what really impressed me was the upsetting of The Daily Mail. Good work!
January 28th, 2011 at 8:44 am
So the fact that my new careers site is being built to be mobile friendly makes me a visionary right?
January 28th, 2011 at 9:07 am
You need good vision to read 5 point text, yes
January 28th, 2011 at 9:11 am
Matt, stellar post.
With all these things the technology, the platform and even the process are mere infrastructure not differentiators…the true difference and the compelling reason for people applying to jobs is the “message”. Companies are forgetting to tell the story…so the question to ask is can your story be told on a mobile device?
@thehrd
January 28th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
I wish to clarify that I am not attributing my insightful and informative comment to @theHRD. It’s clearly not his work due to the former attributes
Apologies for any confusion!
@RogerPhilby
January 28th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Matt,
I agree 2011 is not the year of mobile!
But it is the start of the decade of mobile!
Any comparison to today’s mobile landscape to that of wap is failing to consider the mainstream market. For example 10bn app downloads or 40% of all tweets sent from mobile or 200m Facebook users active on mobile. WAP was too early without the technology or the infrastructure. The next decade will see today’s mature mobile web grow further.
Mobile is very close linked to Social Recruitment. The mobile web is rapidly growing and becoming a key fixture in the media mix. In the UK we have major job boards seeing more traffic via mobile than from Bing and Yahoo combined!
I agree that a key focus area for improvement is general online application improvement – mobile or desktop!
Mobile career apps and sites should compliment the online employment brand strategy today and the future. Me to is never a good reason, solutions to achieve objectives is key!
Btw we never managed to catch up, the mobile career app service we soft launched last week is like nothing before and combines social activity with job opportunities. We should chat I would enjoy your thoughts on the objectives of our clients!
As always great post!
January 28th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Matt..
Great post! I agree that even if companies mobile-ize their sites, job seekers are still looking at horrible job ads. My company has been marketing and selling job apps for smart phones and mobile job sites for more than a year now. Our biggest hurdle is the applicant tracking system. Try to apply to a job in any ATS on your iPhone, it’s a nightmare. Until the ATS catches up, mobile recruiting will always be ahead of it’s time.
Also, if I may. HR must think about treating their mobile applicants (users) like gold. Make them feel special for coming to their mobile site, offer some type of perk for reading their mobile content. Our stats show that the mobile user is far more interested in the job then the regular desktop user. They look at more pages and hit the apply button more. Make em feel special. Almost like when websites became popular back in 90′s. Remember when you would go to a company’s web page and it welcomed you with open arms and gave you a reason to stay and come back. Same goes for mobile recruiting. They came for a reason, make them want to stay, or at least come back.
January 28th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Hi Matt,
I am on the same page as you when it comes to mobile recruiting. I don’t know about you but I cannot imagine ever applying for a job through my phone, and I am part of the Y generation that believes in doing everything through their phone!
I just do not see the reliability behind transferring my application from a mobile device to the computer screen future employers will surely be viewing it on. I loved your point about company websites not being mobile friendly because as of now, very few have tackled that task and until they do from our end, I believe the year of mobile recruiting will have to wait!
Thanks for the great insight!
January 31st, 2011 at 10:03 am
I think you make a really interesting and important point about how few websites are mobile friendly. It would be great to job hunt on your mobile but as you say, there’s a lot more to it than visiting a job board – if you can’t see any context or do any research at the same time, I would say chances are, you’re probably likely to forget about the job you saw that looked interesting because it’s such a hassle to research it using your phone (currently).
I really am surprised at how few major organisations have smart phone friendly websites – it just seems really obvious to me!
Good article, I will be keeping an eye on your blog!
January 31st, 2011 at 6:56 pm
[...] right. I missed the HR world and the community I had built there. A debate would rage on ATS deficiencies or candidate experience and I would be left out in the cold, like a little matchstick girl, looking [...]
February 1st, 2011 at 8:42 am
This post really interested me.
It seems the Alder followers would prefer not to engage with the millions of people who look in AppStore or Google MarketPlace.
It appears having a employer brand sitting on the phones desktop is not of interest.
Building a network of active talent to push new jobs to via a mechanism the user has 100% control of and responds to rapidly is equally un-interesting.
Listening many seem to feel a mobile website will do – even though more than 50% of mobile web use is via an app?
Apparently providing the user choice on how to engage is not a worth while exercise?
Perhaps most interesting is those with theses views have minimal experience in this space (Not you Matt). Many are evangelists for Social Recruiting a strategy which faces very similar challenges to Mobile! But those challenges seem not to be a problem for Social?
The biggest take away from this post and the comments is:
1. Mobile is not understood- just like social 5 years ago it needs case studies. The value of Active Network of candidates via push and the brand engagement needs to be shared.
2. The application process needs improving, in a years time the trend suggests 60% of Twitter use will be on a mobile. If Application is the KPI then I expect the value of a user finding a job on social (mobile) and applying later from a desktop will be accepted or the worlds ATS will need to accept twitter, Facebook, linkedin profiles as a cv?
The growth rate of smartphones and technology development had already overtaken the majority of the recruitment industry.
There will be a turning point and then a buzz of catch up as the early birds enjoy the benifits!
Over the next few years mobile and social will continue to merge together and our industry will grasp that it is a significant part of the media mix!
February 1st, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Fascinating thoughts. Personally I think the mobile is currently more suited to a Job Board scenario. Why? Simply due to the fact that the visitor is more likely to have visited the site via their desktop, uploaded a CV and set up their alerts. If a job board has a mobile version or an app they receive their alerts on their phone, view and potentially apply. If the job is an email application this then goes off to the advertiser. Job done. If the application is directed to career site which requests a full application, then if they are lucky they will be able to read the form, but give up and possibly apply at home, as they don’t have a CV on their phone or the eyesight to fill in a form.
The Lloyds graduate app looked good until you tried to apply.
If you look at the corporate area, the ATS issue needs to be addressed as typically you have a brochure career site and then the jobs on a different platform. Baring in mind that most can create and import H R xml an API to work with LinkedIn is more than possible (and has been done), but that won’t cover the majority. So that means you need to get a CV uploaded somehow.
Mobile and Social do go hand in hand so companies who have vacancy sharing or like added, will see referals increasing, but until the actual application can be managed, the user experience falls at the last and crucial hurdle.
I think 2011 may see the fastest growth, but hasn’t every year been quoted as the year of the mobile.
Btw all typed on my Blackberry, so no problems with font size
February 1st, 2011 at 6:40 pm
Calm down Dave M, don’t go “bananas” on us
For the record as I said on Katie’s (Pepsico) blog I’m really looking forward to seeing the app, it sounds like it solves one of the key issues that I’ve had with mobile.
I’ve had some really interesting feedback offline on the ATS side of all of this (my other issue), will post a follow up blog with more details as soon as I have five minutes to spare.
Oh and what do you mean “Alder Followers” I’m sure everyone on here is independently minded!
Thanks to all for the continuing debate
February 9th, 2011 at 4:13 pm
Mobile apps are only half of the equation given that less than 25% of the candidates have smartphones — I think it’s more important for job board owners/recruiters to find a way to reengage candidates through SMS text messaging. It’s platform agnostic, has the highest use of any mobile app, and gets the highest response rate from candidates.
Until recruiters fundamentally reexamine how they are communicating with candidates, frustrations will abound. Lets start reaching out and touching job seekers on their turf, on their mobiles, and make applying to a job more convenient and affordable through services like http://www.JobRooster.com.
February 15th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
[...] towards recruiting, means that mobile recruiting doesn’t exist. Therefore this year won’t be the year of mobile recruiting, nor will next year, nor the year [...]
February 19th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Very interesting thoughts Matt. I personally think that 2011 will see mobile playing a more important role in the recruitment process. We are working with several employers who acknowledge that mobile can play a major role in personalising the job application process. We are achieving some ground breaking work in the Education Marketing sector proving that mobile works hand in hand with online communication and can enhance your customer relationships. The same rules apply to recruitment. We will have some interesting case studies to show later this year which we are happy to share with the market.
March 22nd, 2011 at 8:31 am
[...] whole concept of mobile recruiting has been on my mind a lot lately so I was really pleased to get the opportunity to review the PepsiCo US Possibilities mobile app [...]
March 22nd, 2011 at 1:34 pm
[...] whole concept of mobile recruiting has been on my mind a lot lately so I was really pleased to get the opportunity to review the PepsiCo US Possibilities mobile app [...]
March 24th, 2011 at 8:25 am
[...] had a lot of feedback on my recent mobile recruiting post and I’m going to write a proper follow up pretty soon to collate some of these views as well as [...]
April 5th, 2011 at 7:40 pm
[...] of these questions, and many more, I’m sure, will be answered on the panel I share with Matt Alder & Mark Kieve at the Social Media In Recruiting Conference this Thursday. I look forward seeing [...]
August 5th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
An insightful and interesting article Matt thank you and to those that have shared.
Recruitment Agencies have yet to understand just how important and influential communicating through a mobile device can be. As well as ‘mobile sites’ losing connectivity too often, the discussions have to an extent collectively agreed that Mobile Sites ‘transfer the same bad habits/poor job ads to the small screen.’ Yes but we are not fully embracing the true benefits an advanced mobile device actually offers to the recruitment business in the form and power of the personalised mobile application.
If individual recruitment agencies offered individual mobile apps they could begin to compete for candidates on a new ‘mobile’ level. It is the ability of the unique agency app to welcome and encourage a more personal interaction from a target candidate, whether existing to the agency or prospective, that will bring about the emergence of a new and enthused era of Social Recruitment.
Only when agencies begin to target their own tailored mobile applications within vertical markets will they begin to stimulate a level of competitive social recruitment that will not only yield a higher calibre of candidate, but importantly, and indeed depending on how well they use such an advantage, deliver a more specific and relevant candidate quicker than that obtained by the common resource channels, and even more importantly, quicker than the competition.
The reason the Mobile Recruitment game is not being played to its full potential, quite simply, is that the potential has yet to been realised as many agencies do not understand exactly how to participate, contribute and play.
Over a year after Matt wrote A Golden Age of Referral Recruitment?, with the technological capabilities and social connections made available through the personalised mobile application can we acknowledge the agency app as an authority to reinforce the ‘strength of weak ties.’ The Recruitment Agency Mobile Application will become the key business tool to drive referral and social recruitment into the Mobile Recruitment Movement and indeed fortify Matt’s statement that referrals are the future of recruitment.
Let me rephrase. The Personalised Recruitment Agency Mobile Application , The PRAMA is the future of recruitment and is fast becoming the agency asset that will propel recruitment business into an innovative, profitable and exciting new era.
October 5th, 2011 at 9:40 am
[...] in January I wrote a post saying I didn’t think 2011 was going to be the year of mobile, mainly because of a lack of [...]