Will mobile internet be the norm for accessing recruitment sites?

I had a meeting last week with the owner of a niche recruitment company. They’re doing some really impressive stuff online and beginning to see the returns from it.

We started talking about what was now the “norm” in terms of online strategy - and this got me thinking about a post a month or so ago where I was going on about recruiters needing a fixed “black and white” approach for the crux of their strategy and then a “grey” area where they had the facility (and budget) to try out new approaches.

What is the norm today (the fixed, black and white element) would have been considered by some as loony tunes 3/4 years ago. If you had the Life on Mars style time machine do you think if you went back even 5 years that MDs/CEOS would believe just how much they would shortly be willing to spend on something called search engine optimisation? Today SEO is standard practice for just about every recruitment business. There’s a heck of a lot out there today we just take for granted - its just the way things work now.

As much as that’s the case, there have been a heck of a lot of ideas that have fallen by the wayside. Investing time and money in these is cash straight down the tubes. I’m sure you can all think of some examples… You can see one that didn’t make it being sold on ebay at the moment by clicking here.

So this is where it gets trickier. Which of the emerging trends/ tactics are going to be tomorrow’s norm?

There’s not a shortage of choices, that’s for sure. For me, the key points to consider are 1. how many people in the target market are using this type of service and 2. does this new approach allow my firm to offer a better level of service and finally 3, the recruiters favourite - competitor activity.

Let’s use mobile internet as an example. There are some early adopters out there that are offering this service to job seekers. Basis of the offering is pretty simple. If you’re on the go, you can check your mail - if a consultant has emailed you a job, you can check it out on your phone and apply online there and then. Pretty straightforward… and yes I’d say this is a tick on improving service. Where mobile falls down (for the moment!!!) is that so few people really use their phones to access the internet. Discounting text messages (which ain’t the internet, that’s for sure) do you use your phone for anything other than calls? Some people do, but my take is at the moment its a minority. Will that change? How quickly? These are the next questions… First one is easy to answer - a resounding yes, and here’s the reasoning:

• Vodafone are heavily promoting Facebook access to their customer base. Will social media be central to the web going mobile? Lots of highly engaged users, makes sense to me
• i-phones. Got one? Seen one? I think think we’d all quite fancy having an i-phone (looking forward to my contract ending…) i-phone offers the same access to the internet you’d get from your PC. Very user friendly/ intuitive etc.

I think the internet going mobile will be a huge factor over the next 12-18 months. Once its user friendly and has clear pricing (or is free - take your i-phone to a wireless hotspot) then it’ll really motor. Sounds simple but without sorting this out I think mobile web is going to take a lot longer to get people buying in.

OK so mobile web - we’ve got some users…. would anticipate growth in numbers…. think there is scope to offer an extra service… sounds like its worth keeping an eye on to me. If the number of users go up then its definitely worth costing this.

Last piece on this - no3 competitor activity. Have a click here . A big brand recruiter offering/ trialling mobile net job search? Keep an eye on mobile…

Noticed this video on Kris’ blog - it certainly shows how quickly things have moved on - and what we take for granted now…. Imagine 24 being set in 1994 - have a click.