Mobile Recruitment: How Applicant Tracking Systems Are Answering the Call to Mobile

No longer is the mobile phone viewed as a mere utility. Instead, people are now seeing their mobile phone as a natural extension of the desktop computing experience they've become accustomed to. Email and a near desktop internet experience are as accessible to them as the pocket holding their mobile phone. With that accessibility comes a whole new world of expectations, not all of which translate into the mobile space as predicted.

As companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple bring smarter phones with intuitive interfaces to market; users are beginning to expect increasingly more functionality from mobile phones. While the current technology hasn't completely translated this into a seamless desktop web experience, applicant tracking systems are beginning to leverage what mobile has to offer now and beyond.

With current Applicant Tracking System vendors such as Taleo and Kenexa/Brassring looking to leverage the power and flexibility in today's Smartphone, new possibilities appear on the horizon in the form of more engaging platforms designed to attract passive candidates as well as attract active candidates who are being exposed to new forms of mobile branding.

Their current solutions are expanding by not only providing mobile tools for recruiters for talent management in the field but literally into the external candidate apply process itself by optimizing for screen size, interface, speed, security and platform. These optimizations will also allow candidates to interact with a new array of branding options (QR Code, Location Based Services, etc.) that can ultimately help close the gap between when a candidate is exposed to an advertisement and the point they become a searchable candidate within a client's ATS.

Ultimately, it will be the large scale growth of Smartphones that will push conventional recruitment tools and methods into the mobile space. This push will provide the necessary fuel that will create the eventual paradigm shift from the current desktop computing experience to one that addresses mobile as an integral part of overall connectivity that users have come to expect in their daily lives.

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