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Leveraging Mobile Technology to Enable a Candidate - Centric Recruitment Process

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Philip Kurian, Country Head & Director, Pearson Pearson is the world's largest education company, with 35,000 employees in more than 70 countries helping people of all ages to make measurable progress in their lives.

Mobile technologies have transformed the way we perform simple tasks, from ordering food with the tap of a button to swiping right to meet the “One”. Every industry has been hit by GenY's access to smartphones and is adopting business models that revolve around the usage of mobile technologies. India is not left behind in the smartphone game. It is currently the second largest market of smartphone users at 220 million. This figure is said to increase to 702 million smartphone users by 2020. With 68 percent of internet traffic driven by mobile phone users, industries are rushing to build mobile-based enterprise solutions that cater to this market.

What does this mean to recruiters?-Gear up and prepare for the mobile-recruiting revolution. GenY is to make up the entirety of our workforce by 2025-47 percent of these are currently using their mobile phone for job searches.

GenY is GenDIY
GenY is the generation of DIY-ers -collaborative projects, crafts, arts, building technologies - name the industry and there would be a DIY guide for every enthusiast out there! Thus it's no surprise that the same mind set has been deployed for their job seeking needs. With job consultancies taking a back seat, more and more candidates are adopting the DIY recruiting trend. Today's candidates know how to leverage social media and mobile technologies for job hunting - the trend includes setting up job-alerts, viewing job postings, researching about the company, viewing job description and applying for jobs via their phones on-the-go.

Candidates are attracted by robust engagement processes that help in building relationships and identifying the company. Companies need to understand the importance of candidate-centric recruitment processes and adopt newer methods to reach out to both active and passive candidates. Examples are:

• Video Job Descriptions
Videos drive, more than 50 percent of mobile traffic accounting to 64 Percent of all internet traffic. Recruiters have already invested in developing mobile-friendly
company videos that provide an insight of the work culture, company history and vision. How can this be taken one step further?-

Setup interesting, fun videos that can take over the boring job descriptions posted on every job search platform. An increasing number of large firms are implementing this strategy into their hiring process. These can also be made available through recruitment apps as a way of engaging candidates in the recruiting process right from the beginning.

• Online Resumes
Mobile technology is quickly overtaking paper-based and desktop-based application channels. Resumes are no longer printed out on “bond papers” and circulated among job consultancies. Companies are encouraging candidates to send in their resumes as short videos that showcase their abilities beyond the traditional paper resume. Technology has also made it possible to facilitate uploading profile information through the recruitment app before undergoing an on-mobile evaluation.

• Quick Screening Process
Mobile recruiting has moved from being a one way process (Job search apps,SMS text marketing, etc.) to an easy,quick and engaging process. Mobile enterprise solutions (e.g. Hire. Me) are helping candidates through the interview process by conducting job relevant assessments on their mobile platforms itself - this is an alternate to the written and on computer-based assessments that are conducted by recruiters on-site. Actionable insights through real time analytics enable recruiters to focus on only the shortlisted candidates and there by optimize the recruitment bandwidth.

Recruiters and their Virtual Assistants
With the advent of mobile recruiting technologies, recruiters can now explore ways and means to leverage mobile applications to be their virtual assistants. As mobile recruitment is shifting to a candidate-centric process,it is also expected to ease the work load of recruiters and help hire the right candidate more effectively. What do recruiters get out of this?

• Optimizing the Recruitment Bandwidth
Recruiters can save a huge amount of time when candidates are pre-screened. With profile information criteria and reliable psychometric assessments coupled with built-in authentication features in the recruitment app, only the crème de la crème candidates are chosen for the interview process.

• Dashboard of Talent
Contacting, evaluating, and hiring on the go has the potential to be a boon to recruiters .Real time analytics help get a macro picture of the skill landscape in a particular talent cluster. Deeper insights can be used for filtering, ranking and identifying the best applicants for each job. The possibilities of data analysis are endless and customizable based on individual recruiter needs.

• Employer of Choice
By offering the convenience of mobile recruitment to candidates, an organization presents itself as a forward - thinking tech-savvy brand that the 21st century talent can identify with. Through the recruitment app, recruiters get to engage with the candidates during the entire recruitment process with the option of placing company relevant videos and pushing company information. This can have a positive impact on the organizations' employer brand and improve their offer to joinee ratio.

The "DIY Recruitment Model" is a silent trend that is sweeping across the recruiting industry. While there are a few schools of thought that are sceptical of this method, there are a considerable number of people that understand the trend and are upgrading their recruitment process to embrace this shift in the world of recruitment.