The Importance of Mobile on the Job Apply Process

The Importance of Mobile on the Job Apply ProcessThe Importance of Mobile on the Job Apply ProcessThe Importance of Mobile on the Job Apply Process RossheimMobile platforms are evolving the recruitment process, and along with it, the job apply.Today, job seekers expect to view jobs seamlessly on their mobile devices and apply to them quickly and easily. So have all companies career sites jumped on the mobile-friendly bandwagon? Not by a long shot.There are all kinds of excuses why companies arent doing mobile recruiting, but its a must to remain competitive, says Michael Marlatt, executive recruiting partner at Cognizant Technology Solutions and founder of MREC, an annual mobile recruiting conference.Job seekers are voting with their mobiles. According to a Pew Internet study, 43 percent of smartphone owners used their mobile to look up information about jobs. The study points to an even more urgent message for employers that have taken it slow with mobile 18 percent of smartphone us ers submitted a job apply via mobile.Adding to the urgency, Google announced that, beginning in late April 2015, they will penalize web sites that fail the search giants mobile responsive test. The result will downgrade these sites tischordnung in search results served to mobile devices. Some estimates say 81 percent of company sites will be affected by Googles new algorithm, says Marlatt, If you care about your ranking, and want to be seen as innovative, you want to be mobile-ready.So if your company hasnt revamped its mobile recruiting process recently, its time. Here are some pointers.Complexity kills candidate interest. Pare down your career site to bare essentials. Many job seekers fail to complete the job apply because of its complexity, says Amy Hughes, director of client adoption at Monster. An average of 60 to 70 percent of seekers applying to jobs through company career sites will never complete the apply process.Assess candidates priorities. Ask recent hires which element s of your career site attracted them and which didnt. Think about whats going to be important to users, says Marlatt. Make the things that most people want as easy as possible to find. You need to minimize fluff.In 2015, mobile job search is an expected convenience. Cater to the lifestyles of your ideal candidates. If Im waiting to pick up my daughter from a music lesson and I see all these jobs on my smartphone, I want to be able to apply from my phone, says Barry Wu, a senior product manager at Monster.Test-drive your career site on your phone. Play the part of the mobile seeker. The first thing companies need to do is assess their sites mobile friendliness, says Marlatt. Go and navigate the career site from a mobile device, a smartphone or tablet. How does it render? What does the candidate experience from the first point of entry? Whats it like to navigate?Ensure that your site is mobile-responsive. Put your site through Googles test for mobile-responsiveness. If you realize you re not mobile friendly, you need to consider a mobile-responsive design, says Marlatt. It may be too much for IBM to rebuild their site from the ground up for mobile thats a huge undertaking. The workaround is to have a redirect to a simplified mobile site.The best sites respond to the mobile device in the users hand. After youve made your career site at least minimally mobile-responsive, refine it for all the devices used by your target candidates. Apply with Monster, a one-button apply solution, is smart enough to determine whats the best experience for the particular mobile device that the user is on, says Wu.Consider the nothing-but-mobile apply. Can you decide which applicants to screen with a phone interview, based solely on their eintrag via mobile? Make this your next goal. People are doing quick searches on their phones, just to see what jobs are new since yesterday, says Wu. If you put the whole apply on the phone, candidates wont be forced to set a task to complete the p rocess on a laptop or desktop.On the flip side, avoid trying to fully vet the candidate from her mobile apply. Dont front-load your application workflow with processes that can wait. Details like background checks often can be covered during the interview process, says Hughes.If you neglect mobile, you may miss out on diversity. Finally, keep in mind that if your career site turns off mobile users, your workforce demographics may suffer. Hispanics, African-Americans and women are the heaviest users of mobile technology, says Marlatt. So when you think about diversity recruiting, mobile is key.

The Truth Behind 5 Common Job Search Myths

The Truth Behind 5 Common Job Search MythsThe Truth Behind 5 Common Job Search MythsWhen you are looking for a new job, dont allow yourself to be undermined by your preconceived ideas or by the advice of well-meaning but uninformed friends and colleagues. An effective job hunt requires up-to-date knowledge about how employers go about looking for talent, plus insight into the nature of the entire process. Too often job hunters experience frustration along the way because they begin their search without examining fundamental assumptions about themselves and how they are perceived. Dont fall prey to these five inaccurate or outdated ideas 1. Your rsum is about you. Of course you are the subject, but it is more than just about you. Its about how you represent the answer to an employers needs. Its about you in relationship to that potential employer, so you shouldnt just use it to simply list all the responsibilities youve had and the things youve done. An employers job is not to look a t your background and figure out if the position at hand is a good fit for you. Just the opposite is the case. Of course, its true that your skills, experience, successes and education are about you. These are all critical elements of a rsum, but you shouldnt write them in a vacuum. You need to frame them as a marketing document that positions you as the answer to an employers needs. Carefully review position descriptions for which you would be well qualified and highlight keywords of importance. Then, make certain to incorporate those words into the descriptions of your accomplishments and skills. In this way, your rsum can be seen as a document that conveys your value to an employer. 2. A recruiters job is to help you get a job. Recruiters work for their clients the companies who hire them. They receive a hefty commission when they successfully identify a talented individual who is hired. As in many other professions, some recruiters care about the people with whom they interac t. They will try to help you where and when they can. Others seek only to maximize their own income and cant be bothered to spend any more time than is absolutely necessary with someone who cant fulfill that goal. The bottom line, however is that unless you represent close to an ideal match for what a recruiter seeks, he or she will not likely be able to place you into a new job. 3. Job seekers and employers must both sell each other on the opportunity at an interview. If you are looking for the employer to educate you about why you should value the opportunity at hand, you have not done your homework. Never make the mistake that an interview is the appropriate time for you to learn the basics about a company or the opportunities it offers. If an interviewer feels like you are expecting him or her to sell you on the company or position, you have likely just lost hope of attaining it. 4. Networking is all about obtaining help from others. Networking is about building relationships, not viewing people only for the assistance they might lend to you. Putting out the message, Can you help me to. isnt networking its begging. Relationship building takes time, and it involves getting to know other people, building human connections and understanding what you can do for others as well as what they might be able to do for you. A good networker always understands the value of offering to help before ever asking for anything. When you build solid relationships and take the time to learn about others, youll see your efforts come back to benefit you many times over. Networking is all about giving to get and paying it forward. 5. You can beat age discrimination by omitting dates from your rsum and LinkedIn profile. For sure, age discrimination in hiring is rampant. Bear in mind, however, that most people in their 30s to mid-40s wont hesitate to provide dates on their rsums and profiles. When you fail to do so, you give rise to the proverbial elephant in the room. If you a re in your mid-to-late 50s or even early 60s you might even make an employer assume that you are older than you are.You deprive yourself of the opportunity to be found by your contemporaries by failing to include the dates that you attended college and earned degrees on LinkedIn. This can work against you because those contacts might be able to help you. An old college classmate might even be that hiring manager eager to reconnect with you, recognize your value and hire you. Happy hunting

How to Maximize Your Job Search Time

How to Maximize Your Job Search TimeHow to Maximize Your Job Search Time6When youre searching for a job in a new career, thats all it feels like youre doing- every day, all day. And the longer it goes on, the mora you wind up feeling stressed, burnt out, or simply end up applying to any old position so you can end your job search. Below are five ways to maximize your job search time so you can stop wasting time and land the job of your dreams in your newly chosen career field.How to Maximize Your Job Search TimeKnow how to network.With networking, either you love it or hate it. Unfortunately, many people fall in the latter group. But networking is one of the fastest ways to finding a job, so youll need to learn how to do it fast. Attend local networking events (yes, they can work), as well as online group meetings- they can help you connect with key players in your desired industry. You should also let your close friends and family members know about your job search, but be very clea r about the type of job youre interested in. Otherwise, your well-meaning Uncle Pete will recommend you for a banking position, when youre actually interested in teaching high school math.Watch the clock. Many job seekers make the mistake of thinking that if two hours of job searching a day is good, well, then, three is better. Its actually quite the opposite. If you spend too much time in your job search, youll burn out- and be totally miserable in the process. So focus instead on targeting your job search to positions that you really want to apply for. Start your search on niche job boards (like ), particularly if youre looking for a flexible job. And be sure to give yourself breaks, about every half hour or so, simply to get up, stretch, and take your mind off your job search for a few minutes. It will help you become refreshed and more focused.Be proactive.Youve had your heart set on working for this one company for years, even when you were gainfully employed. But they havent l isted any postings for positions that youre interested (or qualified) for. That doesnt mean they dont exist, though. If youve been searching for quite some time, you can reach out to the companys HR department to see if there are any jobs coming up that you can apply for. Conversely, you can ask to submit your job application for future positions.Phone it in. Youre already on your phone all the time, surfing Facebook and scrolling through your own camera roll. Now, let your phone work for you- and help you find a job. You can set up alerts each time a job is posted that you might be interested in applying for. And you can also use your phone to do job search bursts- for about 15 minutes or so- as you wait in line at the grocery store or at the doctors office.Create a vorlage. While its highly advisable to create a customized cover letter and resume for each job that youre applying for, you can still automate some of the job application process by having a standard template to work o ff of. For example, you might want to have a basic resume and cover letter that you can tweak depending on the position. That way, you wont have to start over from scratch for each and every job that piques your interest.Although job searching can certainly be tedious, you can help make the process go much more smoothly when you take control over your time, energy, and effort. Heres to making your job search work for you and getting the job you wantLooking to change careers? Start your job search here