Recruiting remotely: the smart way to apply

By Anna Gibbons, Corporate Communications Director at Sellick Partnership

As technology continues to evolve and the behaviour of job seekers adapts accordingly, recruiters have had to look closely at their application process, to ensure that they are maximising the opportunity for job seekers to find their perfect role.

At the end of 2013 Sellick Partnership launched a mobile site in order to ensure that as a business we were making ourselves as accessible to our clients and candidates as possible.

I led on a project, which began as a decision to choose between developing an app or a mobile compatible site. Initially there was a lot of interest internally about the mobile app, the fact that it remains on the users phone is certainly excellent for brand awareness and exposure, but ultimately we realised that our investment was better spent ensuring that as many people could access our jobs as quickly as possible.

The site has proved extraordinarily successful. In the 16 months that it has been live, we have seen an increase in site visitors of 27% and now attract 29% of our total visitors through this method. And we are not alone in this success.

Half of all searches on Indeed are completed on mobile, and the process to apply has been made simpler through personal accounts with uploaded CVs. In 2014, Indeed found that employers who accept mobile applications receive twice as many applications than those who do not.

In addition, it has changed the way that people search for jobs. Rather than the traditional 9am Monday morning trawl which is traditionally completed on the desktop, we see traffic to our site during the evening, and during rush hour. Being able to browse opportunities whilst on the train or watching television in the evening is a bonus for the busy job seeker.

But there are certainly still challenges. As a niche recruiter working exclusively with qualified legal and financial professionals, our roles often require a more thorough application process, with candidates preferring to tailor their CV to the job specification. Whilst this is possible on a tablet, most will agree that it’s not ideal on the smaller surface of the mobile, which means that we see a far higher bounce rate from our mobile site than we do from desktop users.

This doesn’t seem to put off our candidates however, as we’ve seen a 56% increase in applications to our roles since launching our mobile site, which suggests that our candidates are searching on the move, whilst still choosing to spend time on their application process at their leisure.

The mobile site is also about to become crucial from an SEO perspective, as the latest Google update will include mobile performance in their ranking score. Sites will be judged on their ease of use and performance on a smaller platform, and could have a significant impact on those businesses that haven’t streamlined their online portfolio.

This is yet another development in what has been an enormously exciting time for marketing. The advent of digital marketing, tablet and mobile and the all-consuming power of Google mean that investing in your digital marketing strategy is no longer a nice to have. It is business critical.

Anna Gibbons is Corporate Communications Director at Sellick Partnership with over a decade’s experience in recruitment marketing. Anna is the chair of the APSCo Marketing Forum and chairs their quarterly meetings. Anna’s knowledge extends through the entire marketing mix, with responsibility for sharing and delivering the business brand.