Recruitment is increasingly mobile in India

Mobile recruitment is emerging as a trend in India, leveraging on the fact that most of the working population in India use mobile phones. Nearly half (45%) of companies surveyed by TimesJobs said 10-20% of the job applications they received in 2014-15 came from mobile phones. The figure was under 10% in 2013-14.

Nearly 85% of online operations by job seekers have shifted from PCs to smartphones in the past two to three years, while 65% of organisations now have a mobile recruitment strategy. This is 10% higher than last year, according to the TimesJobs.com survey.

Acknowledging this shift, a quarter of organisations have mobile apps for job candidates, with hospitality, tourism, airlines, recruitment and placement agencies leading in this space. The phenomenon is also opening opportunities in mobile app development and digital recruitment, further spurring hiring and demand across the IT and telecom sectors. 

"With search engines giving higher rankings to mobile friendly websites - mobile-based recruitment strategies are quickly evolving in India Inc. On the other hand, job seekers have already started to search and apply for jobs using mobile mail, SMS, apps, and mobile networking," says Vivek Madhukar, COO, TimesJobs.com.

Despite the big shift in job seeker behaviour, nearly 35% of the organisations surveyed remain apprehensive about implementing mobile device-based recruitment, including several big IT, telecom and consulting services companies, stated the survey. This is an improvement over the 45% of surveyed organisations which expressed anxiety over mobile recruitment last year.

While 60% of employers feel mobile recruitment is easy and quick, only 25% organisations have a career section in their mobile apps. Nearly a third (32%) of organisations want to implement mobile recruitment in the next six months, and 25% are planning to target candidates through mobile in the next year.