Problems with Mobile Recruiting


Posted By: Thomas Shaw, 11:30pm Sunday 02 August 2009

I have been working hard over the past few months developing product ideas for mobile devices and we are very close to releasing an iphone job search application. Most people would argue with me that having a dedicated mobile application is a waste, and sometimes I would agree with them except...

The benefit of just having “1 click” to load a job search application outweighs users having to remember and type your URL into the browser. Let's say you are a job seeker searching for a new job on your phone. Here are some of the steps you would take
  1. Open mobile internet browser
  2. Type the job site's URL into the browser. Hoping that you remember the website and there are no problems with your URL (see article on with or without www)
  3. Wait for the website to download and load in your browser (check data allowance…How much is this costing me?)
  4. Zoom in/out to navigate around the website
  5. Flash scripts are not loading!
  6. I’m lost, it's taking too long! **EXIT**
There are too many steps to take before the user gives up and leaves your website. Even if you have a mobile enabled website, are you redirecting users to that site and can you honestly say that your website is mobile enabled/optimised?

I conducted a survey earlier in the year titled Optimising your job site for mobile devices and found various discrepancies between the various websites. You can try to fix this by redeveloping your website for mobile devices. It's not cheap and most organisations do not have the resources for it.

One of the other problems with job searching on your mobile device is how do users apply for a job?  It is possible to build some sort of login system that stores your details/resume, but there are still technical difficulties in storing/uploading documents from mobile devices. One of the solutions around this is to have the user shortlist or send the job to their email, where they can apply via a computer.

When distributing your jobs to job boards, social media sites and other destinations; it is important to create integration with the systems platform. This way you can utilize and enhance the users experience on that particular platform - not just open the full advert in a new window.

A number of recruiters have asked me how they can distribute their jobs to the iphone. We did not build an all-in-one application for everyone to use. Instead each application will be branded with your name, logo, details and job list. To submit your jobs you will need a formatted RSS/XML job feed.

When developing the concept for iphone job search applications, we wanted to make it as easy as possible for both the advertiser and most importantly the end user to use - simple and uncomplicated.

Stay tuned for more information.