By Yarden Tadmor
In today’s technological world, there’s a shift from desktop to mobile. The app market is exploding, and people are using their pocket-sized devices for everything from dating to banking to wedding dress shopping. It’s no wonder, then, that the world of recruiting should follow suit.
Many businesses, including most small- to medium-sized firms, are frustrated with the existing recruiting process. Paying large referral fees and scraping LinkedIn for in-demand candidates on one end, receiving tons of irrelevant candidates on the other, companies are spending serious time and effort on future hires who may not ultimately be the right fit. So while mobile recruiting may not be a panacea to all that ails the hiring process, it is on the path to solving some of its most entrenched problems.
Problem: The sourcing process goes on forever.
Solution: Whereas traditional recruiting can drag for weeks and months for a single hire, the mobile options encourage a speedier, more efficient hiring flow. Switch, for example, allows applicants to apply to a job with a swipe, and hiring managers can review their profiles and respond immediately. Whether they like the candidate — and begin chat or email correspondence — or pass on the candidate, candidates find out immediately, allowing both parties to move forward By eliminating stacks of paper resumes and cover letters and avoiding the huge backlog of job board applications, candidates don’t get lost in the shuffle and employers don’t end up overwhelmed.
Problem: Hiring costs can hamstring a business.
Solution: Another advantage to jumping into the mobile hiring game at this point is that most apps remain highly affordable or free for employers. Whether they help you meet and network with candidates, like Weave or Lunchmeet; source and hire candidates, like Switch; or streamline and shorten the interview process, like Hirevue.
Problem: Employers and applicants hardly interact
Solution: Contrary to what recruiters might have you believe, many — if not most — job seekers prefer to interact with a real, internal hiring manager or supervisor as soon as possible. With mobile, many apps encourage direct communication with hiring managers right up front in the process. While this could be overwhelming with a large candidate pool, many mobile apps use matching algorithms that bring employers only the most relevant candidates by location, job function, and skills. This simultaneously cuts down on the candidate pool while also enriching it with some of the best, most relevant candidates for the position.
Problem: No traditional recruiting system attracts passive job seekers
Solution: Passive job seekers, aka those currently employed but who may be “passively” looking for their next opportunity, are the most in-demand on the market today. Unfortunately, no talent acquisition system adequately hooks this population of employees. Until now. The anonymity and do-it-yourself nature of mobile cuts sharply against the presiding narrative of invasive recruiters and compromised personal email addresses. Job seekers can search at their own pace, and the speed and intimacy of a mobile interaction encourages passive candidates to look, apply and interact.
When you add to this the fact that millennials are most comfortable with mobile — and 65% of the adult population is searching for jobs on mobile devices — moving to the world of mobile recruiting (or at least adding it as a weapon in your hiring arsenal) is a no-brainer.
Yarden Tadmor is the founder & CEO of Switch, a mobile job matching app that connects job seekers directly to employers. You can download Switch for iOS or Android.
