Mobile Phones and the evolution of digital recruitment

Love them or hate them, mobile phones have become omnipresent over the last few years. In fact, there are currently over 4 billion cellphones in the world and there are only 3.5 billion toothbrushes, according to Biz Community article featuring Job Mail’s Product and Marketing Manager, Angelique Robbertse. Recent studies have also pointed out that 91% of mobile phone users have their phones on them or near them 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

15 years ago PC’s and the Internet were the big thing, so recruiters and private companies started turning to online portals (like Job Mail) to market their vacancies to potential candidates. The internet truly simplified the process to receive CV’s and find potential candidates.

Over the years mobile phones have become more popular than PC’s up to the point where there’s 5 times more cellphones in the world than PC’s today. The digital recruitment process has definitely evolved because of this, and if you’re a recruiter and you really want to tap into a veritable goldmine of candidates, you’ll have to make use of both online and mobile recruitment portals. Promoting positions and receiving applications via a mobile platform has also become important in the recruitment realm. With more than 20 million mobile phone users in South Africa alone, the potential marketing audience for positions is a lot bigger on mobile than on old and out-dated web portals.

The introduction of mobile recruitment websites and applications have meant that candidates can literally create or upload their CV’s, browse and apply for jobs and receive communications from interested employers wherever they go. Very few people still fire up the dial-up modem and PC or visit internet cafe’s to check their e-mails, fax their CV’s or browse job websites – everyone uses their mobile phones to do that. This evolved recruitment process appeals to the always-on generation who might not own personal computers, but never let their phones out of their sight.

Within a matter of minutes, in just two steps, a candidate can create his professional application and start job hunting on Job Mail (and other mobile and online job portals). They can apply via their phones. The mobile community is extremely active, which allows quick responses to posted vacancies. Because candidates carry their phones with them all day, they tend to keep an eye on Job Mail. And because they can apply via their phones, they don’t have to wait until they get home to send off an application.

Because there could be hundreds of applications, this doesn’t mean that the quality of candidates is diminished. Desperation will still drive candidates to apply for jobs they might not qualify for, but the same standards of screening and filtering found online applies to mobile recruitment on Job Mail.

The trend towards mobile recruitment is further supported by social media integration. Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites remain the most popular mobile apps in the South African market, which is why we have not only invested heavily in building a strong social media community that recruiters can benefit from. In case you did not know: Job Mail has more than 138,000 Facebook fans and over 23,000 followers on Twitter.

Besides this, Job Mail has also added social media buttons to the platform, allowing candidates to share jobs or their own profiles, giving further insight into the type of person you may be hiring. We also draw numerous candidates via Junk Mail Exchange, our MXiT app.

There can be no doubt that the mobile internet is changing numerous industries – and recruitment is no exception. Recruitment agencies have to access the mobile candidate pool to keep their edge – and mobile job portals make it virtually effortless to do so.

So, what are you waiting for? Post your vacancies on Job Mail today if you want to reach candidates who are actively checking their mobile phones and PC’s for positions.

Watch this space for your regular  updates for employers on the Job Mail Blog.