From marketing to entering time, your mobile experience better be sharp.

 One lesson the coronavirus has taught us is that we’re probably overly dependent on our phones. Our little beacons of entertainment, connection, and information are always on, always nearby and, most often, our go-to means of interacting with friends, family, and brands. Before the crisis this was arguably already the case but, as the world looks for ways to carry on with life and business, many job seekers and staffing clients are beginning to lean more firmly into the power of mobile devices.

What this means for staffing firms—especially small to mid-sized offices without the marketing and technology resources of larger corporations—is that it’s now more important than ever to be taking advantage of technologies that allow you to build your brand and conduct business more efficiently through mobile devices. From prospective clients’ and applicants’ first interactions with your brand via digital marketing and social media through the screening and hiring process and beyond, it’s important to leverage technologies that are committed to a simple, enjoyable mobile experience.

Let’s Start at the Beginning: Marketing

Most staffing firms tend to have LinkedIn, Facebook and, in some cases, Instagram accounts. With the proliferation of these platforms, it’s just common sense to at least have a brand presence. But what do visitors see when they interact with your brand on these platforms? Are your graphics sized correctly? Is your information and messaging consistent across each site? Are you enhancing the localized experience for the user as they explore businesses like yours? These are important questions to address if you want to truly maximize your audience’s mobile experience with your company.

Beyond social, are your digital marketing efforts optimized for mobile? Display and video advertising can be great for building brand awareness and driving traffic, but was your creative made for the shortened attention spans of mobile users? Additionally, what kind of experience can visitors to your website and job board expect? Ensuring that your site has a responsive design that can scale to mobile devices of all types is a must, as is partnering with job board providers, that have optimized their mobile experiences.

Which Leads Us to…The Hiring Process

If a potential candidate takes the bait and clicks on your digital ad and lands on your jobs site, what is that experience like? From their phone or tablet, are they able to easily search jobs, gather details, and submit their application? If so, what is that process like, and do you leverage any technologies such as conversational systems and chatbots to help them along?

Taking advantage of modern technologies like these and others such as SMS messaging and accepting applications through social media platforms is a great way to ensure that the hiring process begins smoothly for candidates without making them change devices. Additionally, in our modern, virus-stricken world, many people are uncomfortable with in-person interviews. Screening and interviewing via services such as Zoom and Skype give you one more way to keep yourself and candidates safe, while interacting with them on their preferred devices.

Go the Extra Mile…Optimize Your Self-Service Experience

With clients as well as candidates forced to socially distance, taking care of some basic business processes like distributing pay stubs, entering time worked, and processing job orders is more of a challenge than ever. Taking advantage of self-service options, such as those offered by our industry leading staffing software, can solve many of these issues, in addition to saving you time and effort. However, it’s important to note that even these experiences must be optimized for mobile devices. Just because you’ve gotten the sale or placed someone into a job doesn’t mean their experience stops there and ensuring that the self-service tools you offer are compatible with the devices most often used is a great way to elevate your firm above the competition.

A quality mobile experience for your clients and candidates will become increasingly critical as Americans begin to return to work, post-coronavirus. The firms that will come out on top will be those who have a consistent, simple experience from marketing to post-hire that is beautiful and engaging across all platforms. Taking the steps to improve the experiences now will help you make sure that yours is one of them.