Mobile Job Seeking: Where are the applications?

70% of job seekers have never applied for a job using their mobile.
100% of job seekers save adverts on their mobile to look at later.
100% of job seekers use multiple devices when searching, researching and applying for jobs.

Job seekers don’t trust their mobiles when applying for jobs, new research from Madgex has revealed.

Two thirds of job seekers in the study have never applied for a job via their mobile, citing a lack of confidence in the device to do the job well. Reasons include the size of the screen, no ‘proper’ keyboard and difficulties cross-referencing the advert, when preparing a covering letter and CV.

However, while job seekers may not be applying via their mobile, they are using their smart phones for much longer periods than previously thought.

Nearly half of the participants in the Job Seeker Behaviour study use their mobile for up to 40 minutes per job seeking session. So if they’re not applying, what are they using their phone for?

According to the report, 100% of job seekers use their mobiles to search for potential job leads, then save the advert to look at later on their desktop. Job seeking has become a multi-device activity, which means job boards need to help users move seamlessly from one device to another.

Madgex used a diary study and combination of analytics to understand how people engage with job boards. The first part of the research – A Day in the Life of a Job Seeker – focused on when people search for jobs. This follow up study looks at how job seekers use a range of devices, and what this means for mobile applications.

Tracy Godding, head of UX research at Madgex, carried out the study: “The increasing use of multiple devices to apply for jobs has fragmented the application process. Job boards need to adapt to that change.

“The application experience needs to be seamless for those that want to defer application for later on a different device, as well as those that are happy to apply on their mobile.

“We also need to help bridge the gap between a jobseeker’s willingness to apply and their lack of trust in applying on mobile.”

Comment by Matt Charney on May 10, 2016 at 2:26pm: This is funny, because "the cloud" ostensibly exists to eliminate this fragmentation - and is a selling point for the very same vendors who can't even make their career site mobile optimized (thus driving the above trends), which isn't really all that hard. Hell, I know HTML5 and I'm a blogger. Interesting stats...

Comment by Stephanie Mills on May 10, 2016 at 4:34pm: Tools may exist to make the mobile application process easier, but there are psychological/behavioural barriers that need to be overcome if we're to see mobile application rates increase to the levels we might expect. But then, from what we have looked at in terms of job seeker attitudes, I'm not sure we have to expect job seekers to follow one set path, we just have to put in the mechanisms that help them move their journey from device to device.

Was glad to see that jobseekers take screenshots of things to remind them to look them up later - glad it's not just me!!