Remembering “Mobilegeddon” back in April 2015 seems like an age ago. Recalling too, the seemingly outlandish promise that mobile usage and traffic would indeed surpass that of desktop feels almost primitive. Now, as we approach the end of 2016 mobile usage in recruitment and other areas of our lives has not disappointed as we clock up more screen time than ever on our beloved devices. It’s interesting to look at not only where we’ve come from in relation to mobile, but how best to use this information for future mobile recruitment and job searching purposes in line with the developments of 2016.
Mobile Usage Statistics in 2016
LinkedIn: LinkedIn reports from this year indicate that 40% of LinkedIn members make use of the mobile app in order to search for jobs. Additionally and interestingly (although slightly off topic) the hottest new skill on LinkedIn of 2016 is Cloud and Distributed Computing, followed by Statistical Analysis and Data Mining. The high demand for technical and IT talent that we’ve observed as an agency this year is supported by the most recent LinkedIn data.
Other Usage: A report from Smart Insights had some very smart insights indeed! Firstly, it revealed that mobile ad spend is still lagging behind mobile media consumption. Additionally, it reported that upon comparing mobile app usage vs. mobile website usage, apps won hands down – indeed 89% of media time is spent on apps; a large proportion of this taken up by the main news, social networking and email apps such as the BBC and Facebook.
One key takeaway from this dominant popularity of apps over the mobile web for mobile recruitment could be in the idea that jobs apps will do far better than mobile optimised job sites in attracting talent. However it’s important to be circumspect with this data. With such a high proportion of time spent on the above-mentioned news-related apps, this data could well be skewed – and we suspect not nearly so much time is on job application apps as supposed to Twitter or Instagram!
If we veer to the other side in support of the mobile web over mobile apps though, Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP) is worth a mention. This is an open source initiative that allows site owners to speed up their mobile pages’ load time on Google and may make the mobile web more popular in future as it gathers pace and recognition. Google essentially removes Javascript from AMP mobile pages allowing content to load much faster, potentially making the mobile web a more enticing place to be. AMP pages tend to feature high on Google’s mobile engine too – and could have SEO implications.
How Can We Use All This Data?
Job Seekers: For job seekers apps can provide a fruitful environment for job searching. To list a few examples LinkedIn, Indeed and resume apps such as Resume Star can make mobile job hunting and applications far easier and less laborious – something we advocate as an agency. In addition, push notifications that allow new jobs to be sent to your device in real time can make job-hunting more effective and setting up a professional phone signature can mean you can apply for positions whilst on the move.
Recruiters: For recruiters the AMP network continues to grow in strength and making your content near instantaneous to load could pay dividends in both mobile web traffic received and application numbers. In addition, the world of apps still reigns supreme and with more of our audience looking to mobile to supplement their job search this could be a key area to win candidates and placements.
Castle Hill House