Mobile devices greatly influence how candidates search and interact with job ads in today’s environment. As more candidates view postings via smartphone or tablet, recruiters and organizations should adapt and make sure their job posts are mobile-friendly. It will not only optimize your hiring practices but will also keep candidates engaged.

Why Mobile Friendly Ads?

Candidates want to have the convenience of applying for a job wherever and whenever they’d like, allowing for faster access and better engagement with your open roles. Being mobile-friendly is also more cost-effective due to being able to target your ads to a specific audience. According to Glassdoor, promoting a job opening as mobile-friendly can increase the number of job applicants by 11.6 percent at the expense of jobs from other employers that aren’t mobile-friendly.

Build a Strong Digital Presence

Before you start with the job ad itself, you should make sure your organization’s career page has job postings that are easy to navigate through while on a mobile device. In addition, review your Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) or Human Resources Information System (HRIS) to make sure you’re able to collect the data you need to measure success with this group.

How to Create a Mobile-Friendly Ad

For many tech-savvy job seekers, your job posting may be your organization's first point of contact. That’s where first impressions count, and your job post is the window into your brand and culture.

Here are some steps to creating a mobile-friendly job posting:

• Job titles should be clear, short, and standardized across your industry. You want the titles to be fully viewable on mobile and not cut off because the characters are too long. You’ll also want to be found in search engines and job boards when you post, so make your job titles are relevant.

• Descriptions should capture the attention of the mobile job seeker, be easy to read and optimized for an online search. Provide clear and concise job descriptions, break up paragraphs, remove unnecessary text, and use bullet points to emphasize areas that are crucial to the role.

• Add details including location, hours of work, and if the position is remote, hybrid, or on-location.

• Calls to action such as “Easy Apply” buttons should be available. Access to one-click buttons indicates that your organization is incorporating the latest digital tools and it should increase your application rate. 

Your job descriptions should provide the mission, vision, and values of your organization’s culture. This way the candidate will have an overall view of how they would fit in the workplace.

Test Your Job Post

Reviewing how your job looks on mobile is crucial since you only have a few moments to engage with a job seeker. You should ensure your ad displays well on the page, has enough spacing between sentences, and doesn’t have any strange text characters in the posting. You’ll also want to make sure the links in your post are working.

Improving with Mobile

Communicating with potential candidates and getting them engaged with your job ads is a continuous effort. By designing well-written job ads that get to the point, you’ll be able to reduce your hiring time and become more efficient when sourcing candidates.