Everything is Going Mobile – Has Your Recruiting Strategy?

I’ve been confined to my home office for a year now, and it seems the perfect time to reflect on how much has changed – and how quickly we have all adapted. While some talk continues on the efforts to return to “normal”, we all know that some things are never going to be the same again.  Retailers are adapting their environments permanently to allow on-line purchasing and pick up in store.  Restaurants who have survived the past year by focusing on the take-out experience are now making that a standard part of their business strategy. 

Every business needs to be reviewing their work at home policies and adapting to what has turned into an expected alternative by many employees.  

So, if we’re evaluating the changes we need to make in the business, has your recruiting strategy also adapted? Retail and restaurants have been among the most impacted industries over the past year and have experienced challenges recruiting hourly labor for several years.  We looked at what has changed and how it might impact recruiting permanently.  

Hourly labor candidates are mobile first users.  They’ve relied on their phones and/or tablets for everything, and new social platforms are setting the tone for both innovation in user experience and simplicity of use.  Many recruiting platforms work on mobile phones, but they really are just responsive web pages, not an actual mobile experience. 

HR apps often require uploading a resume which is hard to do on a phone, and many hourly workers don’t even have a resume. Is that document really the best way to understand how a candidate might contribute to your organization?  What you need is key data to understand the candidate and their work experience. If a dating app can use simple profiles to find the best match, why not an employer looking for an employee?   

Job boards have focused on bringing in the most candidates possible at the expense of employers and job candidates.  Only through dedicated industry platforms can the right data be gathered to assess and select the best candidates. With simple mobile interfaces you can quickly gather more useful information than any generic job site.    

Now to the really challenging changes.  HR teams are accustomed to a process of calls or e-mails to candidates, scheduling interviews and then making a decision. But job seekers have moved on.  They don’t answer calls from unknown callers or even when they do know the caller – really do your kids answer your calls? E-mail is so old school that some young adults don’t even have e-mail accounts. So, your recruiting strategy needs to include chat, video chat and messaging as an integrated communication strategy.  That eliminates the need to schedule interviews and sets up an interactive experience that job seekers are beginning to expect from innovative organizations. 

Recruiting is, and always will be, both a competitive challenge and opportunity.  The best organizations will attract the best job candidates and as a result their customers will reap the benefits of improved experiences. It’s time to invest in your recruiting strategy and stop looking for the biggest job board to scrape candidates from.  Mobile is the default for your job candidates, and it should be for your recruiting strategy.