Speed is the number one design guideline for mobile recruitment websites, according to a new document entitled ’Strategic guide to mobile recruitment’.

The document is produced by social recruitment network BraveNewTalent’s interim director of product Dave Martin (better known by twitter alias @mobile_dave), and recruitment and HR consultancy MetaShift.

The other four key guidelines are: simplicity of navigation, including only the core features (’less is more’); creating a finger friendly website not that “the day of the stylus is over”; and having high contrast, easily visible, accessible design - as the report puts it “remember the screen is small”.

The report suggests that the minimum amount needed to start a mobile recruitment site is £5k.

In his foreword to the report, available for free online, MetaShift’s founder Matt Alder says: “Mobile recruitment is nothing new. Ten years ago I remember working with a forward thinking retailer on an SMS advertising strategy to help them with a store opening.

“The rather ’edgy’ creative certainly got them noticed but perhaps not in quite the way they had envisaged when the resulting complaints from the recipients were profiled in the national tabloid press!”