Mobile: The Next Revolution in Recruiting

Mobile technology has changed the way people communicate in all aspects of their lives. Whether it’s staying in touch with friends and family, closing a business deal, keeping up with the latest news or searching for a job, mobile phones are the key to staying in touch with the outside world. Most people today rely on their mobile phone as an extension of themselves and will rarely be caught without it.

According to Global System for Mobile Communication Association (GSMA) and Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), there are currently 4 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, with a projection of 6 billion subscribers by 2013. Mobile communication remains the most widely adopted of all mass media channels, far surpassing the number of PC owners, which only accounts for 1 billion people worldwide. Not only are there are a large number of mobile subscribers, but more than 3 billion users leverage their device for text messaging, which is the most popular data application in the world.

So What Does The Mobile Movement Mean For The Recruitment Industry?

It has become increasingly necessary for companies and recruiters to leverage targeted recruitment tactics to build and cultivate a qualified talent pipeline. While there are a variety of effective recruitment solutions available online such as general job boards, niche career communities, social media sites and email campaigns, the mobile recruitment revolution is opening up an entirely new window of opportunity for companies to engage with targeted candidates in a more personal way.

Professionals today are often on-the-go and are no longer waiting diligently at their desk for a phone call or email from an employer, which is why mobile recruitment is now beginning to play a greater role in the way employers and candidates connect with one another. More and more job seekers are turning to their mobile device to search for jobs, allowing them to gain a competitive edge over other job seekers by proactively staying informed, quickly reacting to new job opportunities and getting in front of prospective employers before the competition.

As a result, many employers are finding it necessary to incorporate mobile strategies into their overall recruitment program to ensure they are able to effectively connect with their target audience from anywhere, at anytime. Mobile recruitment options, such as texting and mobile job search applications, provide employers with extended reach into both active and passive job seeker communities who search for jobs directly from their mobile device.

Leveraging Mobile Recruitment

Many online job boards, such as Beyond.com, have recognized the value of the mobile movement and are offering mobile recruitment strategies that benefit both job seekers and employers alike. For example, Beyond.com offers mobile job searching across its network of thousands of niche career communities and also boasts two mobile applications which provide recruitment capabilities across three major smart phone platforms, including iPhone®, Windows Mobile® and Blackberry®. Mobile applications are growing in popularity and offer an excellent venue for employers to distribute their job postings and connect with job seekers on-the-go. When selecting an online recruitment vendor, employers should research if the job board offers automatic job distribution to mobile devices, which allows the company to accomplish both online and mobile distribution at once, extending their reach to job seekers and yielding faster applies.

Another effective way for employers to quickly connect with candidates is through text-messaging. Text-messaging is the only universal mobile platform for the masses, and is available on over 98% of all cell phones, according to CellSigns.com. Employers can invest in mobile marketing through short codes, which is a 5 or 6 digit mobile code that has the ability to send and receive text messages. There are also many text-messaging applications available to help employers deliver a mass quantity of text-messages at one time. If leveraged correctly, text-messaging could prove to be a powerful, yet personalized recruitment tool for employers.

While mobile recruiting may be the wave of the future, it is important that employers continue to keep their options open and never invest too heavily in one type of recruitment alone. Mobile recruitment is an excellent tool that can help employers maximize their recruitment program when used as part of an integrated campaign that includes a variety of other tactics such as: online ads, email marketing, banner advertising, resume searching, and more.

To learn more about the mobile recruitment options available through Beyond.com, please visit: http://www.beyond.com/career-resources.