PepsiCo will launch its mobile phone careers application for iPad, iPhone and Android in the UK later this year, following a soft launch in the US last February.

Speaking to the Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers (The FIRM) in London on Thursday, Katie McNab of PepsiCo’s talent acquisition team in the UK said that two people have been hired and 10 were undergoing assessment as a result of the application’s implementation in the US.

The mobile careers app offers video content and interactivity to showcase careers at PepsiCo and give potential recruits an idea of what it is like to work there.

Within 60 days of the app’s implementation, 3,500 downloads had taken place and 2,100 job alerts sent out. “I didn’t think anyone would download this,” McNab admitted, “so that was a nice surprise.”

So far, the most used search terms on the application have been ‘manager’, ‘warehouse’ and ‘driver’, McNab said.

The careers application links to video and interactive content but does not as yet offer a means for potential candidates to apply through it, McNab said. The UK launch could happen in “five or six weeks”, she added.

Unique configurations must be done for each of the different mobile operating systems. A version of the application for BlackBerry will follow behind those for the iPad, iPhone and Android at some point, McNab said.

Providing the technical expertise on the PepsiCo application was the UK-based mobile recruitment specialist Allthetopbananas. The cost of a basic mobile careers application is between £15-£25k, a company spokesman said at yesterday’s event.

PepsiCo’s food and drink products in the UK include Pepsi, Walker’s crisps and Quaker. “A big challenge we have is, we are a house of brands,” said McNab, better known online by her Twitter sobriquet of RecruitGal.

The FIRM has nearly 4,000 members in its LinkedIn network worldwide.