(Photo credit: andjohan)
By Adam Lewis
If you’re paying attention to the U.S.’s economic recovery, you’ll probably know that there are about 11 million unemployed citizens and strong disagreements about how to create more jobs. What you may not know is that there are actually four million open jobs waiting to be filled, and that American businesses could be filling more of those jobs – if they better utilized technology.
When it comes to this mismatch between unemployment numbers and vacant jobs, blame is cast in all directions: Job seekers are unwilling to move cities or work in unfamiliar positions; Employers are holding out for the elusive “perfect candidate”; and schools just aren’t providing the right skills.
As someone who has moved a family across continents for work (not easy), and as a business owner who has often struggled to find talented people with specific skills (who wants to compromise?), I sympathize with both sides.
An objective look at the job market, however, clearly shows that while technology is increasingly deployed in higher-level recruiting efforts, it is underutilized in services and support sectors – such as retail – that require less specific skill sets and tend to have high turnover among predominantly low-wage positions. These jobs should in theory be relatively easy to fill, but many businesses are failing to recruit well-qualified candidates – and too many jobs remain open.
To better understand this, I recently put myself through the job application process as a walk-in candidate with a few well-known global brands in New York City. At the first store, after a wait, I was handed brief instructions on a piece of receipt paper printed from the register directing me to the company’s website. I tried doing that, but it wasn’t optimized for smartphones, so I couldn’t apply or even view the site until I found a desktop computer.
At another store I joined a publicly advertised open-call session, and along with the 50 people waiting in line I was given a six-page form to fill out – ahead of an advertised five-minute slot with the Assistant Manager. After waiting for more than an hour in the line, I watched disillusioned candidates give up and walk away. Even assuming the five-minute slots were kept to, if you’re the 40th candidate in line, that’s a minimum of a two-hour wait.
I’ve discussed these experiences with many job seekers and recruiters, and they’ve confirmed that this is the norm in these industries. The processes these employers are using are inefficient, off-putting, and ultimately a terrible way to be introduced to a prospective employer – or customer.
These companies could improve their talent searches by embracing readily available technologies – like making their websites mobile-friendly. The International Data Corporation has predicted that by 2015 more Americans will be accessing the Internet via mobile devices than with desktop or laptop computers. The “millennial” generation of roughly 18 to 34 year olds will be leading the pack.
Experian Marketing Services found that approximately half of these “millennials” – who are viewed as prime candidates for the unfilled entry-level or low-wage jobs in the services and support sectors – are likely to be the first to acquire and utilize new technologies. Today, that increasingly means using mobile devices and social media to seek out the information they want. The most successful companies will be those who stay ahead of the trend.
Some of America’s largest companies are moving in this direction, but not nearly fast enough. The Corporate Mobile Readiness Report found that only about a third of the current Fortune 500 companies had career sites that could be viewed on a mobile device. And only about three percent of them offer a mobile application process.
Embracing the newest technology for recruitment will not only make matching open jobs with job seekers more efficient – saving companies time, revenue (it won’t be necessary to lose valuable retail space to recruit drives), and headache – it will also ensure a better pool of job seekers and more effectively filter candidates. For example, many retail jobs have irregular hours. Imagine how many doomed applications and waste-of-time interviews could be avoided by simply knowing in advance if a candidate could work the right shifts?
If businesses in the services and support sectors were smarter about using mobile devices and social media to locate, screen, and recruit prospective employees, they could go a long way towards closing the unemployment gap in America.
Adam Lewis is a New York based entrepreneur whose most recent company is Apploi, a mobile recruiting application.
