A review of the FTSE 100 company websites carried out earlier this month by Web Based Recruitment found that 94% of companies did not offer a mobile-enabled careers section to help candidates easily navigate and search for jobs.  

And as Recruiter reported in August, it’s even worse in the USA, where only one in five Fortune 500 companies - the largest 500 US corporations ranked by revenue - has a fully mobile career site.

Mike Taylor, director of online recruitment marketing consultancy Web Based Recruitment, who carried out the review, says: “Companies that fail to offer a mobile-enabled careers section are in danger of losing out on top talent through offering a bad user experience.

“Today, it is not unusual for recruiters to see 30% of their overall traffic come from a mobile device. This means that if a careers section is not mobile-enabled, not only could a company miss out on top talent they can also damage their brand and reputation as well.

“If you compare the mobile-enabled careers section experience to other industries, then recruitment clearly has some catching up to do when it comes to a mobile strategy. The retail industry is well ahead because they realised early on that if they didn’t cater for a mobile audience they would lose sales. 

“With new smartphones and tablet devices being introduced all the time, and the new 4G mobile network being part rolled out at the end of 2012, the use of mobile to search and apply for a job will only increase.” 

This theme was also reiterated at a conference organised by The Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers (The FIRM) last week, where statistics cited in a presentation by mobile consultancy Grapple revealed that the number of smartphones shipped worldwide rose by 63% to 488m between 2010 and 2011.  

Similarly the number of tablets increased by 274% to 63m. The conference, entitled ‘Building Resourcing Capability’, heard that half of the UK population now own a Smartphone.

However, there are signs that the so-called ‘mobile revolution’ could be more wishful thinking than reality when it comes to recruitment.

The latest research conducted by graduate-jobs.com suggests that graduates are yet to embrace mobile technologies when applying for graduate roles. The report shows that only 11% of the 650+ survey respondents have applied for a graduate scheme using their mobile. Surprisingly, this amount was surpassed by graduates who have applied for roles via post (19%). 

Gerry Wyatt, chief executive of graduate-jobs.com, says: “Based on this research, businesses now need to ask themselves if they are doing all they can to fully optimise their application process for mobile. Only then will we know if graduates are prepared to make the leap from desktop to mobile.”