It’s just like 1995 all over again for Ed Newman, the new VP of Strategy at iMomentous. It’s a company you probably haven’t heard of but you may have used. We’ll get to that in a minute.
Newman is having a Back to the Future moment because in 1995, 70% of the Fortune 500 didn’t have a corporate website. Now though, 90% of them don’t optimize their career sites for mobile usage.
That’s according to a report that his company recently completed surveying the mobile recruiting landscape of the entire Fortune 500. He sees the same lost opportunity and slow adoption that plagued companies well into the new millennium when it came to overall internet adoption.
Only now, things are bound to be much more difficult for late adopters.
Going through the report, one thing is striking: a lot of companies do have native apps. In fact, over 50% of them have a downloadable app of some kind. So companies do recognize that there is a real opportunity with mobile devices.
From there, it drops significantly. Most don’t have a mobile corporate site, much less a link to the career site (mobile or not), a mobile career section or a way to apply for jobs online.
In fact, only one company aced the report when it came to mobile readiness: McDonalds. They are the only ones who scored points in every category without any deductions. Those categories included native consumer apps on iTunes, Mobile optimized corporate site, careers link on optimized corporate site, mobile optimized career section, mobile optimized apply process and a native careers app in the iTunes store.
After McDonalds, even the top 12 didn’t look to be in that great of shape. Most seem to have the some of the basics down. They have a mobile site but there might not be an easy way to get to it. Or they have mobile apps for their consumer side but not for their jobs.
Newman felt the disconnect between companies who recognized the importance of mobile marketing but never made the connection to their jobs to be less than surprising. “One hand doesn’t know what the other is doing,” he said via phone yesterday.
The stakes are upped significantly now, too. While user adoption of the web as a whole grew pretty steadily in the decade following 1995, mobile web adoption has exploded. According to IDC, mobile internet use is going to surpass desktop internet use by 2015.
Of course, with any mobile careers platform, the last step—namely, applying—is typically the most difficult to implement. But what we’re seeing is that most large companies haven’t even started yet.
Now about the company that wrote up the report, iMomentous. It’s a mobile technology company, but that’s not surprising, considering the subject matter of the report. What is surprising is that iMomentous is a white label solution delivered exclusively through a partner. “Most of the companies that use us have no idea we are powering their mobile career sites,” said Newman. “If you asked them if they are using iMomentous, they would say, ‘Who is that?’”
Newman was brought on to change that. “We’re going to build out teams to take this solution directly to market,” he said. “We’re still going to have channel partners of course, but now you can come to us directly if you want.” And he’s looking forward to working full-time with a company again. “It’s been 18 months and I’ve been antsy to get back in the groove of things.”