Mobile recruitment - the next generations candidate experience

What does the candidate experience in your organization really look like, from the candidate’s perspective? It is very easy to get blinkered vision. Feel free to try to go through your job search process yourself. Was it possible to complete the whole process in the mobile in a smooth way, or did certain steps require you to sit down at the computer? According to a survey from Higher, 80% want to be able to apply for a job via mobile, but only 15% do so today. Another survey from Bravura shows that one in five has canceled an application because they could not complete it on their mobile. If we compare with the development in e-commerce and the experience we expect as consumers today, recruitment therefore seems to be far behind. What is the reason for this?

Four common obstacles to a mobile-based candidate experience:

The career page is not optimized for mobile

Using responsive design and mobile optimizing all parts of your website, including the career page, should be a given for today’s companies, but unfortunately not everyone is there yet. When mobile adaptation is lacking, it’s mostly forms and buttons that work poorly, which makes it almost impossible to complete a job application on a mobile phone.

The candidate must upload documents

Most people do not have access to a CV and personal letter on their mobile phone and therfore won’t be able to upload or attach in a job application. Even fewer would sit down and edit the documents on their mobile phones. For a truly mobile-adapted candidate experience, it’s wise to skip the documents completely and let the candidate apply for the job without a CV and personal letter.

Too much space for writing

Simple information such as name and email address can of course be filled in, but there is a limit to how much writing you want to do on your mobile – even for the younger generations. Use multiple-choice questions as much as possible. It also makes the answers much easier to handle for you as an employer.

You need download an app or register an account

Apps are great in many ways, but having to download another one to your phone is an additional step that reduces the candidate experience more than you might think. The same applies to having to register an account. Every extra step, click or personal information required to submit an application reduces the chances of a candidate completing the process. Remember that this can be the candidate’s very first contact with your organization, and that the contact so far is completely one-sided. At this stage, the candidate does not even know if he/she will receive an answer to their application. You can therefore not request an excessive commitment. So instead of lavish apps: mobile optimize your existing career page (or choose a mobile-based recruitment tool) so that a minimum number of steps are required to apply for a job at your company.

Use a recruitment tool that is tailored to how candidates want to apply for jobs today. Read more here.

Unprejudiced recruitment and personality tests are hot topics in recruitment today. What will recruitment look like going forward? What can we expect to see more of in the future? Read more about this topic here Rekryteringsguide: Framtidens rekrytering