The mobile web is evolving, but what about user attitudes to recruitment?

At the start of the year we predicted a growth in mobile compatible websites and subsequent recruitment campaigns. Mobile technology has continued to evolve, with new releases of Android and Apple iOS software increasing phone processing power and the speed of accessing the mobile web.

Businesses are becoming aware of the need to develop their mobile web presence if they want to capture this growing audience.

This is no more apparent than on the new Hays Digital & Creative website, fully compatible with all smart phones and scalable to fit any screen. It’s this sort of innovation which is driving the technology forward and helping prove our prediction correct.

However, whilst mobile technology is beginning to fulfil its promise, there is still a reluctance to further utilise for job searching and applying for roles.

We recently conducted a survey to some of the most recent applicants to Hays to gain an insight into their use of the mobile internet and their view on mobile job applications. The results weren’t entirely surprising.

Out of the 100 people who took the survey, almost 80% of them had access to internet though their phone and 37.5% of those people using it several times a day. Yet the majority of this time was spent checking email, social networking or playing games. 70% didn’t actively search for jobs and almost 80% had never applied for a job on their phone.

When asked why, the reasons all fell into the following categories –

• Desktop/laptop is easier / more convenient
• Connection speeds
• Usability / screen size.
• Security concerns / sending sensitive information.

There are solutions to these reservations which will undoubtedly continue to improve. For example, awareness of mobile security software is still relatively poor, highlighted in this Mobile News blog. Mobile networks are endeavouring to improve connection speeds all the time, and with 4G to be introduced in 2012/2013, we’ll see noticeable improvements.

As with most innovations, there is always a time lag before attitudes catch up with technology. The “speed of acceptance” has increased in recent years and “critical mass” can build quickly. This can be seen from recent stats from Ebay reveal that a car is sold every five minutes via mobile, with one transaction per second processed globally via mobile services. It’s just a matter of time before attitudes change towards mobile recruitment.