Today, there are more than 4.6 billion smartphone users on the planet. Considering the world has a population of 8 billion, this means that a majority of adults have a smartphone. As a small business, the prevalence of mobile devices matters because it impacts how you market products, handle onboarding, and accept job applications.
According to the recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 0.9 job seekers for every open job. To compete in this type of job market as an employer you need to do more than edit your job posting and update your benefits. You need to make applying for a job at your company easier, so more prospects complete their job applications. Many of your applicants will use mobile devices to submit their job apps, so you need to make your company’s application process as accommodating as possible.
Why Mobile Job Applications Are Important for Growing Businesses
Today, 28% of all Americans and a whopping half of young adults use smartphones to apply for jobs. This means paper applications are simply not going to cut it if you want to access a broad pool of talented workers. You also need to go beyond a basic application on your website. If your job applications aren’t available in a mobile-friendly format, you’re going to miss out on potential applicants.
By adopting a mobile-friendly job application, you can reach more people. It improves the candidate experience and gives them a positive first impression of your company. Additionally, mobile job applications mean you can get applications faster because you don’t have to wait for someone to stop by your company to pick up and drop off a physical application.
Best Practices for Using Mobile Job Applications at Your Small Business
When designing your mobile application process, you have to be thoughtful about how lengthy and complicated it will be to fill out. According to one survey, 60% of job candidates quit filling out an application halfway through because it was too long or complex. In fact, cutting your application time to 5 minutes or less can boost the conversion rate of viewers who decide to apply by 365%.
As a small business owner, there are a few things you should be doing to make your mobile job applications as easy and fast to fill out as possible.
Design Mobile-Friendly Job Descriptions
Smartphones have small screens, so blocks of text are off-putting for the viewer. Instead, you should create short paragraphs and a little white space so that it is easier to read. The most effective mobile job descriptions tend to be at least 250 words long, but you also don’t want to create a lengthy treatise that will deter applicants.
Consider Bullet Points
You can make your job description more mobile friendly by using bullet points. This is especially helpful when you have to list different benefits, job requirements, or job duties. By topping the bullet points with a heading, you make the job description easier to scan so that applicants can quickly see if they’re interested in applying for your open position.
Avoid Multiple Login Pages
Some companies list an opening on a job board that forces applicants to create an account on the company’s website in order to apply. When you force applicants to create a new account so that they can log into your hiring platform, it decreases your application completion rate. If you want to bring in applicants, you need to make your application process easier. You don’t want to deter qualified applicants by making a cumbersome hiring process.
If you are trying to deter unqualified applicants, creating different login pages is an ineffective way to do so. You can filter out unqualified applicants by adding a couple of questions that reflect the genuine requirements of the position, such as years of experience. The actual application process should be simple so that you receive as many qualified applicants as possible.
Reduce the Number of Screens
When researchers compared applications with 50 or more questions to applications with 25 or fewer, they found that completion rates dropped by almost 50% for the more extensive applications. To ensure you’re getting the most applications possible, try to lower the number of questions you ask.
As a part of this goal, you should also decrease the number of screens on your application. Once your application gets five to six different screens involved, your completion rate will start to fall significantly.
Adopt a Mobile-Responsive Design
In web design, mobile-responsive designs are designs that immediately adapt to the viewer’s screen size. As you update your mobile job application setup, you should also make sure your job description, company website, and application feature responsive designs. Besides improving your job application process, a responsive design can also boost your search engine rankings because Google and other search engines rank mobile-optimized sites higher.
Use Software To Filter Applications
When you use mobile applications, you don’t have to read through every single application that comes in. Instead, you can program questions that can narrow down the applicant list. For example, you can ask applicants to input how many years of experience they have. Then, the applicant tracking system (ATS) will automatically filter out any applicants who don’t have enough experience.
It’s important to be strategic about how you use filtering software. There’s a war for top talent in the labor market today, so you want to be judicious about who you eliminate from your list. You can start by going through your list of desired qualifications and determining which ones are absolute requirements. Then, you’ll use these qualities when you program your hiring software to filter out unqualified applicants.
Collect User Data From Your Mobile Application
To enhance your recruitment process, you need data. Fortunately, your mobile application design can generate a lot of useful information. For example, you can find out which screens are the last ones would-be applicants fill out before they give up. Then, this information can help you find and solve the underlying issue.
Optimize Your Job Descriptions, Website, and Pre-Interview Screening Tools
Besides updating your mobile job application, you should also review your job description, company website, and pre-interview screening process. Applicants will likely engage with all of these tools during and after they apply at your company, so you should ensure that their experience is as good as possible.
Boost Your Company’s Approach to Digital Recruitment
Thanks to the prevalence of mobile devices, more people are using smartphones to submit their resumes than ever before. As an employer, this means you must ensure your company’s online job application is optimized for mobile users.
To learn more about ways that you can enhance your business’s approach to digital recruitment, reach out to our team of small business payroll and HR experts today.