The problem with this is that we become addicted to novelty. We get addicted to trying to get the new thing up and running. Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Tumblr – the list of possible ways to engage talent , particularly passive talent, grows as we spend more time in this world. We have conferences on how social platforms can build brand engagement, on how LinkedIn can find us the names of possible talent, on how metrics and online interaction can create loyalty. It’s a shiny new world, and it gives us all something to talk about. And I have no doubt that there are plenty of strategies that allow companies to use social media to bring passive talent to a greater understanding of what they offer. No doubt at all.

However, this addiction to novelty comes at a price. We have ignored mastery for diversity. We’ve become handymen instead of craftsmen, explorers instead of refiners.  Most of all, we’ve become people who go out and buy bandages instead of going to a doctor. We have diverse and complex systems to manage our active candidates that contain communications templates, can tie in to existing communities and give us a multitude of ways to parse talent. And I believe that, in the majority of cases, our teams of recruiters know enough about this software to get by, and nothing more.

(I’m going to use PageUp as an example here, just because it’s easier to name a system. PageUp isn’t the problem; in fact, it’s an excellent system that almost no one is using to full capacity.)

If you have PageUp, your recruiters most likely get trained in how to do the day to day work in the system, and very little about the advanced areas. They won’t be unilaterally educated about updates or new features. They’ll be technicians, good at using one functional workflow to answer a need – the need to fill a role. They won’t be masters, or gurus, or (insert your term for the PageUp wizard in your business here) – they’ll have a fit-for-purpose understanding. This has been the case everywhere I’ve worked, and from discussions with other people in the game, it is common enough. Common enough, in fact, that organisations with strong social recruiting efforts spend more time refining their social campaigns to attract passive candidates than they do talking to existing, active ones.

If we compare the relationship between candidates and your brand to human relationships, then we are investing in looking good on RSVP instead of learning to be a better spouse. In short, we go speed dating online and never use the phone numbers we collect. We are ignoring those who are already attracted to us in favour of converting the unallied masses to our brand. We are making conversions from brand ambivalence to brand alliance through marketing and online engagement, and then rewarding that conversion with silence and ambivalence of our own. “Treat them mean, keep them keen” doesn’t apply to what we do. We foster discontent with every missed opportunity for better interaction with our existing, active candidates, and often we do it because we’re time-poor. It’s like saying  “When sales pick up, we’ll do some marketing. “ Bad advice. This is the area in which most companies can grow the most, can return the best ROI, and can make the most significant gains in reduced time to fill, cost per hire and recruiter workload in. It’s so simple that’s it’s overlooked by default.

Advanced skills (mastery, if you will) in all the ways you can pipeline talent and use PageUp (or whatever system you’re using) is a less public, less expensive, less marketing intensive way of making gains in the war for talent. It requires harnessing the knowledge of your experts and sharing it so that everyone in your team becomes highly proficient in all the aspects of the system. It provides, in return, more channels and opportunities for measuring ROI, better deployment of resources, faster results, lower time to get new staff up to speed and, above all, thicker and deeper communications channels to the people in your talent pools who really want you.

Social media has pulled our focus, because it’s public and shiny and democratic. It’s visible and engaging and fun. People like using it. And it absolutely has its place in engaging passive talent, in building brand perception, in being a brand authority and in joining the conversation about your employment offering. It’s important, however, to make it a balanced part of a strategy that mixes passive contact with nurturing existing candidates, a strategy that encourages loyalty by rewarding the most loyal, active candidates with the most attention.

And if yours is an organisation that sacrifices good candidate care and dismisses active, motivated jobseekers for trying to hook the passive ones, you run an additional risk. If you sow dissent in those who love you, your social media presences may become the field on which you reap the annoyance, vitriol and disappointment of those hearts you’ve broken or spurned.

HR In Black And White – Riges Younan from Jared Woods on Vimeo.

The point of mobile apps is repetition. They’re designed to be used multiple times. If you’re downloading a program to your mobile device, you’d want it to be something you use time and again. Like ordering a pizza, or logging into Twitter, or taking photos. They’re designed to perform a specific repetitive function for the user.

Which is why they’re not suited for corporate recruitment.

Applying for a job is a process which requires a one-off, content-rich transmission of information from candidate to employer. It’s not like ordering a pizza or checking Facebook. It’s often a multi-stage process that requires consideration and a lot of detailed information. It’s a sales process, in which the candidate creates (essentially) a marketing impression upon a company.

Designing an app which includes the process of applying for a job with a company would require a huge amount of information transfer. Also, as most smart devices don’t allow a user to store a resume on file for upload, the app would have to mimic the entire resume-building process. Realistically, we’re talking about an app which requires the user to input four A4 pages of information to complete the process.  And assuming the app works seamlessly with multiple candidate management systems (which is a big call, as many of these systems have very specific information requirements) you’ve just entered the database.

So why keep the app? You’re in the talent pool for that company now. You aren’t going to reapply to that company again, are you? If the company is sophisticated enough to be looking at recruitment apps, it’s a fair bet that it’s using a sophisticated automated candidate management system, and any repeated candidate applications will be discarded anyway. The supporters of this idea say the app could be updated with information about the brand and the company. And they’re right – although given the company already has this information on their website, why duplicate it? It’s additional content creation for another channel which doesn’t add any tangible value.

And what’s the value of it being an app at all? The preachers of this idea say it becomes more mobile. More accessible. Both of these are true, and yet both could be addressed by making the core recruitment portal online more mobile friendly. It wouldn’t make it any less time-consuming regarding the process, but it would mean that content only has to be updated once, not across multiple languages and platforms.

In addition, applying for a job is something which should require concentration. It’s a process of creating a great first impression. It isn’t something you should be doing on the bus, or while waiting for a movie to start. I know people use mobile devices in the home more and more (I know I do!) but that doesn’t change the fact that applying for a role requires a bit of gravity and dedication. It’s a sit-down task, and I honestly believe that giving the application process an app makes it seem flippant. It also isolates information – a recruitment-specific app doesn’t let candidates tour around and see what else you’re doing as a business. And if you include more information for a brand-rich environment, it’s like having two corporate websites that need updating. Why not just have one that you manage really well, that’s mobile-friendly?

Apps are about providing information to make it easier to do something again and again. Applying to work for a company is something candidates should be doing once, and doing with the maximum effort to increase their chances. Making it an app-driven process will make it more time consuming, less content-rich and (I believe) ultimately less enjoyable for a candidate. Personally, I’d rather my candidates found it easy and enjoyable to apply to my company. It’s part of designing the employment experience to make them more likely to connect, and stay, with the company long term.