We’ve all read best practices about attracting top talent; there are about 4,987 blog posts dedicated to finding these coveted few. A recent Jobvite study has highlighted one major element of attraction in their “Job Seeker Nation: Mobility in the Workforce Study”.

High mobility workers are defined as the portion of the labor market that has the opportunity and experience to switch jobs more frequently. They are considered the in-demand workers who have advancement opportunities within the labor market. Simply put, these are the folks you probably want working for you. Not to be confused with job-hoppers.

What does the high mobility worker look like?

They make up a surprisingly small portion of the workforce. Here’s the math: 36% of job seekers have a college, or post-graduate degree. Of those job seekers, 80% are full-time employed. To get more detailed, the in-demand fields of these highly mobile job seekers are technology, manufacturing and retail. Again, the people you’re trying to attract.

The magnet part…

Back to how “mobile is the purple squirrel magnet.” This highly mobile sector of the workforce has been proven to prefer the emerging, non-traditional methods in their job searches. In fact, twice as many of them used recruiters or social networks to find their current job. Their social site of choice is LinkedIn, while the majority of low-mobility workers (those in career fields with less advancement opportunities), turn to Facebook for their SoMe job hunt. While 94% of recruiters use LinkedIn to scout out candidates, only 34% of job seekers are – but it looks like it’s the right 36%.

Nearly a quarter (24%) of highly mobile job seekers find the ability to apply for jobs on mobile important, and 21% find an optimized, mobile website to be important during the job search. For some, these might seem like “no-duh” statistics, but a recent LinkedIn study revealed that only 13% of employers are adequately investing in mobile recruiting.

What are they looking for?

Well we know that LinkedIn is their job search social media platform of choice, so who better to look to for the answer?! The same LI study defines exactly what job candidates are looking for when they reach your mobile career site.

• 94% of candidates want to see current job openings on the mobile career site.
• 72% of visitors to a mobile career site expect to find a description of the company culture.
• 61% of candidates want to learn about the company history.
• 56% of mobile job seekers expect to find benefits information.
• 45% want to explore profiles of employees.

Aren’t they taken?

Social job seekers are wealthier, more highly educated and more likely to be employed full-time. So in all reality, these sought after, highly mobile workers are spoken for job-wise, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t willing to consider other opportunities. In fact, the Jobvite Jobseeker National Study revealed that 51% of employed workers are either actively seeking, or open to a new job. For highly mobile jobseekers that number is even higher at 56% and 31% of them change jobs every 1-5 years.

I know that recruiters have preached enough about getting their efforts mobile, but the fact still remains that a mere 13% of employers are adequately investing in mobile recruiting. Yeah, I used that one again, because it’s pretty surprising. As the battle for top talent heats up, employers are going to lose out big on the opportunity to effortlessly get in front of the right audience with mobile career sites and mobile job application platforms. How does your mobile strategy look?

Bio: Maren Hogan

Maren Hogan is a community builder and seasoned marketer in the HR and Recruiting industry. She leads Red Branch Media, a full-service marketing and advertising agency serving the HR and Recruiting sectors. A consistent advocate of next generation marketing techniques, Hogan has built successful online communities, deployed brand strategies in both the B2B and B2C sectors, and been a prolific contributor of thought leadership in the recruitment and talent space.

You can read more of her work on Marenated.com, HRExaminer.com, Recruiter.com, Inc.com, Forbes, Entrepreneur and the Glassdoor and Peoplefluent blogs. Follow her on twitter @marenhogan — she’s funnier there.