How Job Seekers Use Social Media and Mobile in 2014 [INFOGRAPHIC]

Our friends at Jobvite recently conducted a nationwide online omnibus survey of 1,303 U.S. job seekers who are currently in employment. Here are some of the main takeaways (scroll down for the infographic).

Social job seekers

86% of job seekers have an account on at least one of the six online social networks included with this study; Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. Social job seekers are younger, more highly educated and more likely to be employed full-time.

Facebook

76% of social job seekers found their current position through Facebook. Three most popular activities on Facebook:

• 27% contact shared a job opportunity


• 25% contact provided an employee’s perspective on a company


• 22% shared a job opportunity with a contact

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linkedin

LinkedIn is where they do most of their job-seeking activity

• 40% contact referred me for a job


• 34% contact shared a job opportunity


• 32% made a new professional connection


• 32% contact provided an employee’s perspective on a company

Twitter

• Twitter is the most popular place to ask others for help and advice:

Next three most popular activities on Twitter:

• 29% shared a job opportunity with a contact


• 28% contact provided an employee’s perspective on a company


• 28% contact shared a job opportunity

Privacy

46% of job seekers have modified their privacy settings. Job seekers are as likely to delete their account completely as they are to remove specific content from their profiles. And recruiters are looking:

• 93% of recruiters are likely to look at a candidate’s social profile.


• 42% have reconsidered a candidate based on content viewed in a social profile, leading to both positive and negative re-assessments

 

The college educated are also 4x as likely to update their LinkedIn with professional info than those who are high-school educated or less, and almost 2x as likely to do so on a mobile device.

Most popular social networks

While job seekers flock to Facebook, recruiters prefer Linkedin when searching for candidates. Most popular social networks for…

Job seekers:

• Facebook 83%


• Twitter 40%


• Google+ 37%


• LinkedIn 36%

Recruiters:

• LinkedIn 94%


• Facebook 65%


• Twitter 55%


• Google + 18%

While 94% of recruiters are active on Linkedin, only 36% of job seekers are.

The mobile job seeker

Frequent job-changers are more likely than average to have searched for jobs or had contact with a potential employer on their mobile device: 64% of adults who change jobs every 1-5 years vs. 43% overall.

43% of job seekers have used their mobile device to engage in job-seeking activity

• 27% of job seekers expect to be able to apply for a job from their mobile device.


• 37% of millennial job seekers expect career websites to be optimized for mobile.

Percentage of job seekers rating the following “important” in their job search:

• 55% ability to see job openings or listings without having to register


• 27% ability to apply for jobs from a mobile device


• 23% website optimized for mobile devices


• 11% ability to use Linkedin profile or online resume to apply for a job

Mobile and social

Mobile job seekers are more likely to turn to Facebook than Linkedin in their job search. Percentage of job seekers who have done the following on a mobile device:

Updated their profile with professional information:

• 15% Facebook


• 11% Twitter


• 6% Linkedin

Searched for a job:

• 12% Facebook


• 7% Linkedin


• 6% Twitter

 

via How Job Seekers Use Social Media and Mobile in 2014 [INFOGRAPHIC].

How Job Seekers Use Social Media and Mobile in 2014 [INFOGRAPHIC]

How CIOs Can Boost Mobile App Adoption

CIOs with an eye on mobility have probably spent a small fortune creating a private enterprise app store. They’ve spent countless hours tending to an environment where business managers plant seeds for app ideas and developers bring those ideas to fruition. Often, the number of mobile enterprise apps sprouts like weeds.

Are these apps really benefiting the business?

To be truly useful, most apps have to be used regularly — many are not.

“The typical adoption is a spike, followed by a dive after two or three weeks, followed by a very long tail,” says Andrew Borg, founder and principal of eC3 Consulting. “There’s a whole host of reasons why adoption doesn’t meet expectations.”

In researching his “Enterprise App Adoption” e-guide, sponsored by Apperian, Borg found an alarming number of homespun mobile apps with poor adoption rates. According to SAP, more than 78 percent of apps are abandoned after first use. This is part of the reason why the majority of mobile strategies stall, according to a recent Accenture survey of nearly 1,500 C-level executives.

Given the large bets being placed on mobile, a slip in mobile app adoption can quickly turn into a landslide. A recent Apperian survey found that more than 70 percent of respondents plan to equip more than 1,000 users with mobile apps. A third of respondents are deploying mobile apps to more than 5,000 users in the next two years.

But a mobile app’s adoption curve should have the opposite effect of a slide. “The initial spike in adoption should be followed by increasing growth given the positive feedback,” Borg says.

How to Market to Mobile Users

A mobile enterprise app should be marketed to the employee user base before, during and after its launch. Far too often, though, an enterprise app lacks internal marketing, including social media efforts, to drive enthusiasm. As a result, the app withers on the adoption vine. Even though a company might be great at marketing to external customers doesn’t mean it can automatically turn those skills inward.

In his eguide, which Apperian has made available for free, Borg offers some 20 tips covering the lifecycle of adoption to help apps avoid this fate. The Apperian survey found that mobile adoption also relies heavily on help desk support, a BYOD policy, tactics such as gamification, among other factors.

For instance, Borg recommends early usability testing to gain valuable feedback about how an app will be received. A CIO might also want to recruit someone from marketing.

“Working on mobile apps is cool and fun, and many people in your organization may be willing to lend a hand simply to gain some mobility experience,” Borg writes in his e-guide. “A marketing person will bring a creative and communications or promotion-centric skill set to your project, and can help plan and execute the internal launch and rollout.”

Don’t forget to celebrate an app launch at a company event or, if it’s a sales app, a quarterly sales meeting, Borg says. Follow the launch with social media and internal forums for users to provide feedback and increase app awareness. In fact, feedback is so valuable that a CIO might want to offer a monetary or recognition reward for it.

Measuring Mobile Results

And, of course, a CIO should employ analytics and reporting to measure success.

There is no question that mobile app adoption pays for itself in spades. For his e-guide, Borg interviewed numerous executives, including Sarah Weller, managing director of Mubaloo in London. Weller says she initially rolled out an enterprise mobile app to 20 sales people — and people started talking.

“The buzz was created internally by giving it to such a small group,” Weller says. “It got rolled out in stints, because it was built up so much internally, that everyone was desperate to have it, and as soon as they got it, they were using it all the time.”

via How CIOs Can Boost Mobile App Adoption | CIO.

How CIOs Can Boost Mobile App Adoption

Mobile Recruiting: There’s an App for That!

Remember that old iPhone commercial that touted “There’s an app for that”? Attracting, engaging, and retaining top talent is the foundation of successful companies. A recent study by Simply Hired revealed that 70 percent of job seekers are using their mobile phones to find jobs. In addition, forward thinking companies are leveraging mobile apps to hire the best people, build their brand and enable candidates and employees to talk about their experiences on social networks. Ultimately, the job-hunt is about connecting people and information; yet, there are a plethora of mobile apps, recruiting/talent management software programs and social platforms that can accelerate this process.

Mobile apps make searching for a job easier

Gone are the days when candidates secretly sent emails to employers from their home computers on Sunday nights! Mobile apps allow candidates to discreetly search for positions- anytime, anywhere and quickly respond to postings. Hundreds of mobile apps are available for job search (CareerBuilder, Monster, Indeed, Simply Hired, SnagAJob, Linkup, etc.), plus apps to build your resume (Pocket Resume, Resume App), network for lunch (http://lunchmeetapp.com), prepare for an interview (101Great Answers to Tough Interview Questions), research companies and assess salaries and company reviews (Glassdoor, Indeed), organize the job search process (Fresh Transition Job Search Organizer), and much more. Career Rocketeer provides a list of the top 25 iPhone apps (http://careerrocketeer.com/top-25-must-have-iphone-apps-for-your-job-search).

Apps to Build Professional Network & Personal Brand

Mobile apps have contributed to the explosion in social networks and candidates are leveraging networking apps (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, SnapData Business Cards, etc.) to connect, share and update their profiles, regardless of where you are. For example, Twitter allows you to share content and build awareness of yourself as a thought leader. Twitter’s openness and more casual style make it a useful platform for showcasing your “full self”- interests, talents, style and personality. Allow your authentic self to shine! Network across disciplines and follow/engage with people who inspire you. I consider myself a skilled networker, but Twitter has pushed me outside me comfort zone and I LOVE it! Remember, recruiters will look at your networks consider how your connections frame who you are and what type of fit you would be for a company.

Mobile Recruiting Enhances a Companies Response

Corporations are incorporating mobile apps to facilitate recruitment workflow, making it easier to HR to evaluate candidates, share information with hiring managers and make job offers. It’s critical to have a nimble strategy to reach your target audience, and increase productivity by enabling your team to “work from anywhere.” By 2020, more than 50% of the U.S. workforce will be comprised of millennials. Currently, more than 70% of Fortune 100 companies have not invested in mobile optimizing their career pages. Thus, traditional companies will need to invest in sleek mobile apps to meet the demand of the digital natives.

Bottom line: There are hundreds of apps that candidates can leverage to identify job openings, prep for interviews, expand their professional network and much more. It’s imperative to differentiate yourself, establish a strong online personal brand and leverage your relationships and unique talents to land your ideal job.

via Mobile Recruiting: There’s an App for That! HR, Recruiting, Social Media Policies, Human Resources, HR Technology Blogging4Jobs.

Mobile Recruiting: There’s an App for That!

68% of Job Seekers Use Mobile in Their Job Search

Social media is no longer a nice to have. It’s a must have as part of your recruitment strategy. Here’s why:

• 92% of recruiters plan on using social media in their recruiting efforts over the next 12 months

• 49% of recruiters said social media increased candidate quality

• Recruiters saved $370,000,000 in recruitment expenses with social media in 2012. (See the inforgraphic from iMomentous to more insights about this stat below.)

Recruiting using social must incorporate mobile today

Unfortunately, often left out of the conversation when it comes to social media use and social recruiting is how mobile is critical to the future success of reaching your target candidate especially true when most recent data from GlassDoor reports that 3 out of 5 job seekers are relying on mobile in their personal job search strategies. Recruiting using social must incorporate mobile into the overall strategy. Otherwise, companies and recruiting teams are building hiring strategies with one arm tied behind their back. And that’s not a good thing especially when the job market is so competitive for knowledge workers, engineers and qualified job candidates. We have to have the right strategies and tools to reach, engage and build relationships with our best candidate recruiting pool.

• Mobile is the preferred method to be social. Adobe’s 2013 Mobile survey found that 71% of social media activities where happening on a mobile device.

• Mobile is about now. I call this the Performance of Now. When we are seeking information, answers and connections in the moment we are looking to mobile. Whether it’s a Yelp restaurant review, a recommendation from a friend or a prepping for that job interview as you wait in the company lobby.

• Mobile is personal. Our mobile phones are our personal computer assistants informing us of sports scores and dental appointments and are a way to be fully connected even if we move half way across the US (like I did) or halfway across the world. Mobile makes recruiting a personal yet global engagement at the same time.

via 68% of Job Seekers Use Mobile in Their Job Search – Blogging4Jobs HR, Recruiting, Social Media Policies, Human Resources, HR Technology Blogging4Jobs.

68% of Job Seekers Use Mobile in Their Job Search

Mobility and Recruiting: How the Mobile Revolution Can Help Drive Your Recruiting Processes

The mobile revolution has dramatically changed the way we live and work. With a pace of adoption that far surpasses both the uptake of personal computers and residential Internet connections, the way in which we have embraced mobile has given us numerous opportunities to connect with others in ever more engaging and interactive ways – especially when it comes to recruiting.

However, it’s easy for this potential to be lost. With so many people using smartphone and tablets for casual gaming, how could users ever be enticed into reading messages about recruitment and job opportunities?

The reality is that, with the lines between leisure and work time becoming ever blurred, people are more likely than ever to use a smartphone for accessing the internet (60% of users) and email (52% of users). Even given that it is a relative dinosaur of the digital age, email is still the most effective way of communicating recruitment messages, and mobile use of email has risen by 450% between 2010 and 2013.

Engaging Mobile Users

With users checking their devices up to 150 times per day, commonly during commuting, work breaks and in the evening, mobile is a perfect method through which to engage a captive audience during their downtime. However, people typically have a short attention span at this time, and so mobile recruiting messages must be well thought out in order to convert well. As such, mobile messaging should be:

Mobile optimized, with vertically scrolling pages and fonts that are clear on smaller screens. This is key, as providing a desktop experience on a mobile device is jarring and allows abandonment rates to soar.

Highly relevant to the target audience, with separate functionality for both internal or external candidates.

Contain bold calls to action if they are to hook your target audience and encourage them to apply for open positions.

Streamlined to allow applicants to apply for roles with the fewest clicks or taps possible.

Mobile and Social Referrals

Given the way that social media has become highly integrated with mobile, it is now easier than ever the leverage the power of social networks and the potential they hold for recruiters. By providing an integrated method for recommending contacts from networks such as LinkedIn or Facebook with simple one click referrals, recruiters can overcome the biggest challenge faced by many referral programs – the drop of interest and lack of activity that is often characterized by a program that is too time consuming or requires too much heavy lifting from the user.

Mobile has given recruiters and talent acquisition teams a new and exciting way to engage candidates throughout the day and in a convenient way. By adapting quickly and creating a mobile first strategy, as opposed to simply transferring existing practices to a new platform, you can reduce your time to hire and recruitment costs, whilst boosting engagement and standing out as a dynamic employer.

via Mobility and Recruiting: How the Mobile Revolution Can Help Drive Your Recruiting Processes – RecruitingBlogs.

Mobility and Recruiting: How the Mobile Revolution Can Help Drive Your Recruiting Processes

Hire top talent with Mobile

In late 2012 executives at PepsiCo (PEP, Fortune 500) discovered something surprising: Ninety percent of the people who clicked through job-related emails from the company did so on their mobile phones. The numbers stunned the human resources department of the $65.4 billion in sales snack and beverage company, which receives 45,000 job applications each month for positions as diverse as truck driver and finance manager. Instead of job hunting from home, people were doing so while standing in line at a restaurant or even sitting on a couch watching the game. “It was an eye opener,” says Chris Hoyt, PepsiCo’s director of global talent engagement.

PepsiCo realized it needed to reach people from their pockets. By March the company will roll out a new career site that lets people hunt for jobs and, for the first time, apply for them using their mobile phones.

The sudden, widespread use of mobile devices for job hunting has blindsided most HR executives. About 82% of the 1,000 job seekers surveyed last fall by career site Glassdoor.com said they expected to use their phones to look for jobs in the next 12 months. Yet only 20% of companies optimized their career sites for mobile traffic, according to a 2013 LinkedIn (LNKD) survey of 3,379 corporate recruiters. “People realize that mobile is huge, but few are doing something about it,” says LinkedIn spokesman Joe Roualdes.

HR executives at PepsiCo first noticed the uptick in mobile visits to the company’s career site three years ago. They built a mobile app called Possibilities to let people hunt for jobs, watch videos on company culture, and interact on Twitter with HR managers. As mobile adoption grew, executives realized that the app wouldn’t be enough. So they built a mobile-friendly career site that was easier to navigate for people using smaller screens.

Last year, things really shifted. Hoyt says he saw an 800% increase in job applications that were started on phones. “They wanted, even expected, to be able to research jobs and apply on the go,” Hoyt says. But the technology wasn’t there yet. Filling out applications on a tiny screen was too cumbersome, and storing a résumé on your phone wasn’t always possible. HR executives had to hope that candidates would start the process on their phones and finish it later on their desktop computers.

That’s no longer the case. New software platforms such as Three Sparks, Jibe, and iMomentous allow big companies to seamlessly connect internal software systems that sort résumés and screen candidates. LinkedIn now offers several mobile services to put relevant jobs in front of job seekers on the go and make mobile job applications easier. And Monster.com (MWW) introduced mobile recruiting apps and services built specifically for employers.

At PepsiCo, it’s all about finding the best potential hires — wherever they may be. “We’re at a point where people want things in the palm of their hand, easy to get to, and on demand,” Hoyt says. In 2014 that includes a career.

via Objective: Hire top talent – Jan. 16, 2014.

Hire top talent with Mobile

Debate about value of Mobile Recruiting

From  HRExaminer.

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John Sumser debates mobile recruiting on HRExaminer.com

Mobile: The State of the Market Question: After nearly a decade of big rhetoric about mobile being the ‘next thing in recruiting’, why is it that only 5% of the Fortune 500 have a effective mobile recruiting presence? Sumser: In fairness, the stats are all over the place. CareerBuilder says it’s 20%. The 5% number is taken from an iMomentous survey that defines mobile recruiting adoption as “actually enable a candidate to apply to a job”. That same survey notes that 37% of the Fortune 500 have no presence at all. After a decade of availability, most of the Fortune 500 was on its second generation of career site. Let’s stop for a moment and get the definitions right. On one level, there are no recruiters who are not using mobile tools for recruiting. Virtually every transaction in the recruiting process is touched by email and virtually every recruiter uses a mobile device to handle some or all of their digital correspondence. For this discussion, Mobile Recruiting refers to having a web presence that is accessible via a mobile device that allows a candidate to discover and apply for a job from that device. So, why is it taking so long for mobile to become a standard part of the corporate recruiting arsenal? There are a host of reasons:

• Mobile Recruiting, in its current forms, mimics the conventional career website which in turn mimics a job board. The current model of a career website is rooted in classified advertising. The company posts a job, candidates apply, recruiters skinny down the pile of applicants to an acceptable minimum. This recruiting model may be appropriate for mass hiring, it doesn’t work as well for upper level positions. Recruiting budgets tend to be spent on higher level positions


• HR and Recruiting are not the drivers of mobile communications policies. The rest of the organization has not settled on its approach to mobile. While consumer facing companies have been quick to experiment with mobile websites, few have adopted mobile whole heartedly. In the non-consumer sectors, progress is much slower. According to Pure Oxygen Labs, only 6% of Fortune 500 sites met Google’s best practice criteria. 44% of the Fortune 100 had no mobile presence at all. This makes it look like mobile adoption is not driven by the desires of the HR/Recruiting Department.


• Mobile Recruiting demands fast decision making. In general, mobile cleaves work into two piles: fast stuff and slow stuff. Mobile takes the fast stuff and leaves the rest for more thoughtful environments. It’s not at all clear that companies want prospective employees to make career decisions on the fly. Nor is it likely that potential employees see this as a good idea.


• Mobile Recruiting serves “active candidates”. Labor shortage rhetoric aside, unemployment is high, workforce participation is at an historic low and the biggest selling recruiting tool (LinkedIn) targets passive candidates. Most contemporary recruiting training teaches recruiters to target and hunt. Being a resume filter is very 1990s. In it’s penultimate form, mobile recruiting is a tool for reaching people who are looking for work. The money os flowing towards ‘passive candidates’.

 

In short, mobile recruiting is a tool that targets the wrong audience. While it may be powerfully useful for low wage high turnover positions (McDonald’s has an award winning mobile recruiting operation), it seems like it will be a while before McKinsey joins the club. The final reason that mobile is taking so long to reach the recruiting market is simple. No one has yet offered a really compelling value to the corporate buyer. Currently, mobile recruiting tools barely deliver what’s already available. In many cases they don’t even do that much.

 

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Ed Newman debates Mobile Recruiting on HRExaminer.com

Ed Newman responds: As with any new trend there is always a lot of hype that will make you raise an eyebrow and wonder if it’s real. Mobile recruiting has been no different. There has been such an intense focus on the rapid adoption of mobile devices and how they have changed our lives it might lead you to believe the technology has been available for a decade. But in reality it has only been a few short years since the first mobile career sites emerged in the middle of 2010. Even if we use June of 2007 and the initial launch of the iPhone as the starting point we are only 6 ½ years in. If you put this on a parallel timeline with web technology it’s about 1998 and from my perspective the adoption rate of mobile recruiting is very similar to where we were with corporate career sites. For the sake of the discussion, let’s assume that we should be moving much faster this time around and revisit the question at hand. Why has adoption of mobile career sites among the Fortune 500 been so low? Here is my take:

• The mobile apply process is by far the lowest area of adoption with only 5% of the Fortune 500 stepping up to the challenge. As companies contemplate mobile apply, they are faced with a much bigger dilemma. Their desktop apply process is already so ugly and complicated that replicating it to a 4 inch screen will only make it worse. As companies continue to make the candidate experience a top priority and reengineer the overall application process, mobile apply will become mainstream. If you doubt it, can you remember when we used to question whether all job seekers would be willing to apply online?


• With the focus of mobile recruiting exclusively on the career site, there is a natural organizational conflict between HR and corporate marketing that is slowing adoption. This is almost identical to what occurred in the 1990s. As the web emerged and companies grappled with the establishment of corporate web pages, HR departments moved concurrently to get their jobs online. Among the early adopters of mobile this same fragmentation is evident as more than 36% of corporations with mobile web sites have no link to careers, and also have separate mobile career sites that are not easy to find. Companies will eventually figure out an integrated approach just like we did in 2001. It is inevitable.


• Up to this point mobile recruiting has been a knee jerk reaction to the interface problem, and the fact that most implementations are only a mobile reflection of the desktop career site is limiting any game changing results. The solutions market is very early in its evolution, but growing rapidly. Once a few pioneers take full advantage of this new medium and generate real value, the definition of mobile recruiting will broaden well beyond the corporate career site. It will become a driver of operational change throughout the recruiting and hiring process.

 

Unlike the preceding technology trends of Internet Recruiting, and Social Recruiting, Mobile Recruiting as the market currently defines it is not really a choice. You had a choice to post jobs on Monster or stick to print media and classifieds. You had a choice to set up LinkedIn or Facebook pages or Tweet. But with the mobile trend, candidates can access your career site and social pages from a mobile web browser even if you have not optimized the content. It sort of makes the question of adoption a moot point; the job seekers have decided for us and you are mobile recruiting whether you want to or not. The only question that remains is how good is their mobile experience?

 

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via Debate: Mobile Recruiting 1 | HR Examiner.

Debate about value of Mobile Recruiting

LinkedIn Launches a Set of Mobile Recruiting Products

LinkedIn unveiled two new mobile recruiting products on Wednesday morning, continuing the company’s push into bringing its site and services to mobile devices.

The apps are aimed primarily at talent seekers and hiring managers — those who make up the largest part of the company’s business. LinkedIn Recruiter Mobile, for instance, brings the professional network’s recruiting products to the iPhone.

It’s essentially a mobile-focused port of the company’s desktop Recruiter product, allowing hiring managers to keep track of, take notes on and reach out to prospective job candidates from their phone. The other release, “Mobile Work With Us,” is pretty much an ad-like product that lets employers stick job openings on top of their own employees’ profiles to lure outside candidates.

The point of all this is simple: 33 percent of LinkedIn’s unique visits come from mobile, a number that’s only been slowly trending upward over the past two years. If LinkedIn wants to keep its money-making recruiting business chugging along nicely, it’s probably a good idea to bring it to the phone.

Not that the company has ignored the desktop. In April, LinkedIn gave Recruiter a complete design refresh, putting the emphasis on search.

The new mobile app is free for those who pay for LinkedIn’s Recruiting service, and is available for the iPhone beginning immediately.

Shares of LinkedIn were trading up about 1.2 percent on Wednesday morning, hovering around $238.

via LinkedIn Launches a Set of Mobile Recruiting Products – Mike Isaac – Social – AllThingsD.

LinkedIn Launches a Set of Mobile Recruiting Products