[Whitepaper] How to Improve your Mobile Device Recruiting

HOW TO IMPROVEYOUR MOBILEDEVICE RECRUITING

Consumers today use their mobile devices for everything; to check social updates, verify their bank balance, talk to their kids and see how the weather is going to be. It’s no surprise that consumers are using their phones in their job search.

But there’s a problem. In every other interaction, the consumer touch point has improved when moved to the mobile device. Processes have been rethought, and they have gotten better. Right now, it’s a lot easier to check your bank balance on your mobile phone than through a desktop web browser.

That has not happened in recruitment. Our data, gained from a longitudinal study of every major applicant tracking system in 15 different industries, reveals a startling statistic. For every 100 candidates who click through from a job advertisement to a recruitment portal on a desktop device, eight will complete an application. For mobile click-throughs, the completion figure is just 1.5%.

What this data is telling us is that while the rest of the consumer world has kept pace with mobility, and changed with mobility, recruiting has not. For hiring managers and recruiters, the mobile disconnect is costly. Today’s advertising models charge recruiters each time an applicant clicks on a job advertisement, regardless of what the job seeker does next. When completion rates are low, applicant sourcing costs are commensurately high.

The business case for improving mobile recruitment platforms is compelling. Data hints at a growing wave of mobile candidates who want quick, easy application processes. They are not finding them. The purpose of this white paper is to cut through the misinformation and give a definitive assessment of what works for mobile users, what doesn’t work, and why.

In our conclusion, we provide guidance for you to make the necessary changes to your own mobile recruitment processes and achieve a measurable return on investment.

I do hope you find it useful.

Mobile Recruitment Strategy 2015

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Chris Forman,Founder and CEO

of Appcast


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In 2014, 50% of job applicants used their mobile phone to search and apply for jobs.

Executive Summary

Introduction: Mobile is Changingthe Recruiting Game

Only 1.5% of job seekers who use a mobile phone to click through from a job advertisement to a corporate careers site complete a job application.

Lengthy, complex and time consuming applications act as a barrier to mobile applicants. Applications that take more than 15 minutes to complete experience a 365% degradation in completion rates.

Most of today’s recruitment advertising models work on a cost-per-click basis. The low mobile completion rate means that recruiters are paying for applicants who abandon their application, driving up recruitment costs.

Considerable cost savings can be made by changing the application business process to a “need to know” model.

Recruitment and advertising technology is swiftly changing to address the mobile revolution.

The mobile explosion is changing the recruiting game. In 2010, only 10% of job applicants used their mobile phone to search and apply for jobs. By 2014, that figure had risen to 50%.

With the seismic shift towards mobile-savvy job-seekers, recruiters face a stark choice. They must either strategize for radical change or compromise their ability to compete for talent.

This white paper looks at the challenges faced by human resources professionals in the wake of the mobile revolution. Using data gained from studies of over 500,000 applicant tracking systems, it takes an in-depth, data-driven look at the harsh impact the mobile application process has on recruiting costs and outcomes. It then considers how new technologies will help human resources professionals control mobile sourcing costs while still recruiting with maximum efficiency.

In the retail, sales and technology sectors, just 1% of mobile applicants complete a job application.

In the aircraft manufacturing, consulting, staffing and insurance industries, the mobile click-to-apply ratio drops to 0%.


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The advent of mobility means that applicants can apply for any job, from anywhere, at any time.

Job Seeker Attitudes Toward MobileRecruiting

Figure 1: Click-to-apply ratios by device30 employers, mixed ATS. April/March 2014.

The advent of mobility means that applicants can apply for any job, from anywhere, at any time. With new technologies, candidates are able to click through from a job advertisement to the recruiter’s careers portal, apply to that opening and receive confirmation of the application from a single mobile device.

Yet job seekers clicking through on a mobile device are far less likely to complete a job application than those applying on a device with a built-in keyboard, as Figure 1 shows.

8.25%ALL DEVICES

1.50%MOBILE DEVICES

10.6% of people complete a job application that asks fewer than 25 questions, as Figure 2 shows.

That figure drops by half (5.7%) when the application asks 50 questions or more.

9.8% of people complete an application that is shorter than five pages in length.

The ratio degrades to just 5.8% when the application is longer than 15 pages.


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67% of job seekersdo not apply from mobile because they can’t upload or edit a resume from their phone.

Barriers to Mobile Completion

Figure 2: Click-to-Apply Ratio: # of Questions

Mobile applicants experience a number of barriers that lead them to quit before completing a job application. Some of these barriers are platform issues. Without a radical change in technology it will remain almost impossible for candidates to upload their resumes via a smart phone. But even if recruiters circumvent the platform limitations, for example, by giving candidates the ability to link their application with their LinkedIn profile, mobile click-to-apply degradation would not be solved.

One-form information requests, which collect every piece of data a recruiter might potentially need, regardless of the requirements of the job, are the primary cause of job seekers quitting part way through an application.

12.00%

14.00%

# of Questions1-25 26-50 50+

10.00%

8.00%

6.00%

4.00%

2.00%

0.00%

10.60%

7.51%

5.68%


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Applicant rates drop by a staggering 365% if an applicant takes more than 15 minutes to complete.

Figure 3: Click-to-Apply Ratio: Time

The most significant metric is the time it takes a candidate to complete an application. Application rates drop by a staggering 365% if an application takes more than 15 minutes to complete.

Fundamentally, the small screen exacerbates existing problems within the application business process. Recruiters must streamline the way they ask questions and the questions they ask job seekers in order to keep abreast of the demands of mobile users.

Why Mobile Completion RatesMatterShifting toward a “need to know” process model, where only essential questions are asked of job-seekers, will impact two areas: talent and cost.

TalentSpeed of hire processes are essential if the employer is to remain competitive in today’s aggressive job market. In theory, comprehensive data collection allows human resources professionals to quickly screen out individuals who do not have the required skills and experience.

12.00%

14.00%

# of Minutes1-5 6-15 15+

10.00%

8.00%

6.00%

4.00%

2.00%

0.00%

12.47%

3.61%

6.97%


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“That’s okay. We save money in the long run. It’s more efficient to screen people out up front!”

Hiring managers report administrative efficiencies when adopting application processes that pre-screen candidates. In some industries, this argument is fair.

Compare these figures with data from the healthcare and technology sectors:

In retail, the number of mobile job applicants is NOT sensitive to the complexity of the job application. However, significant drop off does occur in the healthcare and technology sectors. In today’s job market, does anyone want to screen out applicants in healthcare and technology?

One application we reviewed in the retail sector requiring the completion of 25 fields experienced a similar click-to-apply ratio (3.75%) as an application requiring the completion of 108 fields (3.70%).

Also in retail, an application that took just 7 minutes to complete experienced an almost identical click-to-apply ratio (3.75%) as an application that took 30 minutes to complete (3.72%).

In healthcare, one application comprising 81 fields set out over nine pages achieved a 2.81% click-to-apply ratio. A second mobile application comprising just 23 fields set out over two pages achieved an 8.28% click-to-apply ratio; almost a three-fold increase.

Technology follows a similar pattern to healthcare, as Figure 4 shows.

Figure 4: CTA ratios by application length

Industry # of fields # of pages Time (mins) CTA

Technology 146 9 21 3.70%




The sourcing cost-per-applicant is $5 when 10% of click-through candidates complete an application;

It follows that:

A fifteen minute apply process would cost the recruiter$43,000 in advertising spend.

A five minute apply process would cost the recruiter$24,000 in advertising spend.

The sourcing cost-per-applicant is $50 when only 1% ofclick-through candidates complete an application.


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Every question eliminated from the application reduces applicant sourcing costs.

CostToday, most recruitment advertising platforms charge on a pay-per-click basis. Under this model, recruiters pay each time a job-seeker views their job advertisement and clicks through to the employer’s recruitment portal, regardless of what the job seeker does next. If the application process is not optimized for mobile use, and the job seeker abandons the application, the recruiter experiences zero return on their investment.

If we assume that:

The business case for improving the mobile candidate experience is compelling. Figure 5 shows how sharply the cost-per-applicant rises, the more time the application takes to complete. The cost hike is entirely due to rapid drop off in completion rates.

Bluntly put, every question eliminated from the application reduces applicant sourcing costs. Using the average sourcing costs per applicant specified by our research (as shown in Figure 5), and assuming 200 hires with 30 applicants per hire, we can extrapolate that:

Recruiters can achieve $19,000 in direct savings, simply by reducing the mobile application time from 15 minutes to 5 minutes.

Figure 5: Long applications = Higher costs

$12.00

$14.00

$16.00

# of Minutes1-5 6-15 15+

$10.00

$8.00

$6.00

$4.00

$2.00

$0.00

$4.01

$7.17

$13.85


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Rules-based media buying lets the recruiter specify their own financial parameters and smartly engineer the allocation of job advertisement spend.

The Future for Mobile RecruitmentRecruitment media is changing and this will have a profound impact on hiring managers, and their budgets, over the next few years. In the future we expect to see greater partnership between employers, job boards and technology providers to improve recruitment outcomes and yields.

Attracting Candidates: “Rules-Based”Buying Versus “Site-Based” BuyingRecruiters are still making strategic decisions about where to place job advertisements to attract the best candidates. This is out of kilter with consumer advertising, which has embraced the efficiencies and transparency of big data.

Big data and its companion, big analytics, keeps tabs on web users through their dialogues within the digital ecosystem. By tracking their browsing preferences across a range of sites, advertisers can target advertising to and for the individual consumer, ensuring relevance for the consumer and revenue for the advertiser. The key idea here is that artificial intelligence makes better placement decisions than people to improve marketing ROI. It is predicted that programmatic media buying will have a profound effect on the way that hiring managers advertise and track applicant sourcing spend.


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Programmatic ad buying puts the right advertisement before the right audience at the right time. This brings tight focus to recruitment strategy and high yields on advertising spend.

Big data can target or retarget the desired audience across the web, wherever they may be. Facebook, for example, has unveiled plans to harvest the bountiful data it holds on account holders and sell personalized advertising based on the recipient’s information. Web users will receive targeted ads whether they are checking their social media updates or checking the weather.

Thus, job advertisements will have a wider reach, attracting a passive audience who might not actively search job boards. In an aggressive job market, smart data lets recruiters renew their focus on targeting the already employed to provide them with a competitive talent advantage.

Rules-based media buying lets the recruiter specify their own financial parameters and smartly engineer the allocation of job advertisement spend. For example, the recruiter could set a rule that shuts down job advertisements once they attract a certain number of applications, and redirect the advertising spend toward the jobs that have too few. This ensures that budget dollars are focused on hard-to-fill vacancies that need applications.

The cost implication is significant. We looked at over 211,000 applications across 15 companies and grouped the jobs by the number of applications each job received. As you can see from Figure 6, the jobs openings in Group E received an average of 72 application per job. Despite there being more than twice the number of jobs on offer in Group A, that group received no applications. This equates to a zero return on the recruiter’s investment for jobs advertised in Group A.

Rules-based buying hones, quite precisely, what is done with the big data and lets recruiters retain tight control over their inventory. The inherent efficiency of the system means less cash output in terms of advertising dollars for greater reward.

Rules-based buying lets recruiters retain tight control over their inventory.


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A 0 - 5,754 12.5%

B 146 9 13,517

Figure 6: Employers will benefit

GROUP APPS/JOB APP COUNT JOB COUNT % AVE APPS MEDIAN APPS

29.4%

C 16 1 8,239 17.9%

D 10 1 15,506 33.8%

E 10 1 2,925 6.37%

0

2.32

6.34

17.00

72

0

1

6

15

58

Measuring ROI: Cross PlatformTrackingCurrently, a job seeker who views an advertisement on their mobile device but applies for the job later that day through the recruiter’s career portal from their desktop will have their application tracked as originating from the corporate careers site rather than the original source. This is because applicant tracking systems cannot associate the multiple devices a perpetually connected job seeker might use during their job search.

Analytics platforms are now tying together the various devices people use to browse the web. Rather than being logged as a unique visitor on each device he uses, the job seeker will show as a single user and their progress tracked through the application process from device to device. It is expected that cross platform tracking will raise the low click-to-apply ratio for mobile devices and dramatically improve the return on investment of job sites.

ConclusionThere is no doubt that the mobile explosion does, and will continue to, have a profound impact on the recruitment process. The challenge now is for recruiters to provide a seamless application experience between a mobile device and an online recruitment portal.

The analytics and ‘rules based’ buying that comes with these new models will preclude 36% of applies going to 6% of jobs... while 12.5% of jobs don’t get a single apply.


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The challenge is not just a technology issue. Complex recruitment processes deter mobile applicants. The data shows a built-in business case for streamlining the questions asked of job applicants, and the way that recruiters ask them. In a low supply/high demand recruitment environment, where the talent pool is mobile-centric, recruiters can double applications and slash recruitment costs by creating a better mobile apply process across the board.

In the future we expect to see greater partnership between employers, job boards and technology providers. As recruiters look to implement more focused advertising delivery strategies, big data and analytics will be used to create personalized experiences that will yield significant lifts in conversion.

Recruiting with AppcastOn January 1, 2014, StartDate Labs launched Appcast™, the industry’s first pay-per-applicant job ad exchange. Appcast allows talent acquisition leaders to focus their recruitment advertising budgets more efficiently by charging only when a job application is completed on an employer’s corporate career site.

Appcast brings advanced programmatic online ad buying to the human recruitment capital market. Above and beyond the pay-per- applicant pricing model, Appcast’s ‘rules-based buying’ engine delivers great applicants to the recruitment portal and ensures budget dollars are focused exclusively on hard-to-fill or critical vacancies that need applications.

Already utilized by many leading companies, Appcast is focused on maximizing the efficiency of recruiting ad spend in a streamlined, user- friendly way. Hiring managers set the rules on how they wish to sponsor jobs and how much they are willing to pay. There are no minimum budgets or long-term contracts.

To learn more about Appcast and sign up for a demo, visit: http://www.appcast.io

In the future we expect to see greater partnership between employers, job boards & technology providers.

Recruiting & HR

[Whitepaper] How to Improve your Mobile Device Recruiting