Hallelujah on two fronts! One. This industry seems to be getting serious about leveraging mobile devices for recruiting. Two. I am blogging again. It’s about darn time and I sure have missed it.
You may have seen Geoff Peterson’s article about the iPhone last week. The iPhone is such a user friendly and useful device, it just may be the first technology (ever) that recruiters are excited to use. Here, at The Code Works, a few of us wanted to get a slick iPhone, but our provider doesn't make it easy to add them to our small business plan. I'm sure the telecom carriers will get this figured out, but I am wondering how many large staffing firms will really be willing to go the iPhone route.
ERE's Dr. John Sullivan published The Mobile Phone: The Most Effective Recruiting Communications Platform and noted a number of recruiting uses for the smart phone.
One thing we know about recruiters is that they love the telephone. So I have been kind of curious as to why staffing organizations have been slow to adopt mobile technology. Having the device is merely the first step. Enabling recruiters to synch with Outlook, having access to their contacts and email are certainly key. Mobile applications on their device makes the most sense in my mind.
Providing recruiters with mobile access their front office / applicant tracking system makes sense for recruiters who are often out of the office. Mobile methods for data entry are important for getting updates and new data into the system while the information is still fresh. Many FO/ATS vendors say they offer a mobile solution, when in fact, they only allow access via very slow web browsers. If you've ever used a web browser you know what I mean - it's painfully tedious.
Downloading a mobile version of your ATS / FO to your phone is really the only way to have a decent recruiter experience. This technology is highly underutilized in an industry that is so dependent and in love with the mobile phone. A few of us at The Code Works built mobile apps in past lives and actively seek out these projects in the staffing and recruiting industry. I hope all of this talk about mobile technology and recruiting in the press means we'll finally start getting some mobile application projects. Our industry could certainly benefit from this capability.
