I recently stumbled across a quote that got me thinking about what a huge impact the mobile movement has made on the world.
"Mobile is the glue for everything we do," said Oke Okaro, Vice President of ESPN Mobile.
I thought this was a pretty accurate observation. When you think about it, most people are only in front of their computer for a limited amount of time, but they have access to their mobile device for about 18 hours day. Not only are people spending more time surfing the internet on-the-go, but mobile devices have opened up a gateway to an entirely new and more diverse audience than ever before.
With more people demanding quicker access to information on-the-go, it has caused nearly every industry to rethink their strategy to ensure they are not left behind in the mobile trend - and the recruitment industry is no exception!
The closest comparison I can think of to the current mobile movement would be the rise and popularity of the internet. For example, the newspaper industry chose to ignore the internet trend for many years, even though their business heavily relied on classified ads that the internet also had the ability to provide. By the time newspapers realized the value in aligning their business strategy to leverage the internet (not compete with it), it was too late.
Well the same goes for the recruitment industry. However, instead of classified ads, candidates are the bread and butter of our business. In order to keep job seekers happy and returning our sites (whether it is through their PC or their mobile device), it is crucial to incorporate mobile technologies into our business to avoid being left behind.
In March of 2009, we optimized the Beyond.com network to provide mobile job searching to business professionals across thousands of top-tier industry and local web sites. Soon after, we aligned with Viigo to provide job search capabilities and career content to BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices through Viigo’s popular mobile application.
As we continued to expand our mobile program, we also launched a Beyond.com iPhone application in June 2009, which has continually exceeded our expectations in terms of downloads from the iPhone App store.
Most recently, Beyond.com launched two new iPhone applications for TechCareers.com and PhillyJobs.com. With an increased focus on local and industry-specific job searching, these applications offer a more targeted approach to recruitment than many of the other traditional job applications available.
We also launched a Beyond.com Blackberry application, which is now available through Blackberry App World. Currently, Beyond.com is the only job search application available on the Blackberry device that allows job seekers to search and view available jobs by keyword, location or industry.
So it is safe to say that Beyond.com has not only recognized the importance of the mobile movement, but we are working hard to stay ahead of the curve and offer our job seekers as many mobile options as possible. We plan to continue making updates and exploring new devices and technologies to incorporate into our mobile program and refuse to be left behind!
