“If you build it they will come.” For a while, this was the common attitude toward social recruiting strategies: Build a social profile and the candidates will flock to it. A few years into the social age, most recruiters have learned this is not usually the case. Effective social recruiting strategies require an ongoing investment of time and an understanding of how job seekers use social sites. Of course, one way job seekers interact with social sites is on their mobile devices. Mobile technology impacts the job search in other ways too, and recruiters are learning that effective mobile strategies are just as important as their social recruiting strategies.

In the 2012 Mobile & Social Job Search Survey, 77% of more than 850 medical sales job seekers said they use their mobile device to search for jobs, and 76% reported using social networks for professional purposes. These relatively new tactics continue to show results. For the second year in a row, the MedReps.com survey found nearly 1 in 4 respondents had found a job opportunity as a result of their activity on a social network. So, how are they doing it? And how can recruiters ensure they are making the most of these tools?

The MedReps.com Mobile & Social Job Search Survey Results reveal how job seekers are using mobile and social media to look for jobs. Recruiters and those in charge of hiring can use the data to inform their own mobile and social recruiting strategies and connect with the candidates they need.

Mobile Trends Among Medical Sales Professionals

Smartphone usage among medical sales professionals continues to increase – 90% of respondents now own a smartphone compared to the 78% who owned a smartphone in 2009. As for smartphone preferences, Android may be winning the overall market, but medical sales professionals overwhelmingly prefer the iPhone – a huge shift from the 2009 data. Just 3 years ago, Blackberry users outnumbered iPhone users 2 to 1. In 2012, there are nearly 5 times as many iPhone users as there are Blackberry users.

As for tablets, medical sales job seekers are predominantly either using iPads (42%), or they aren’t using tablets at all (48%). Some other tablets used by survey respondents were the Kindle Fire (3%), Samsung Galaxy (2%), and a few mentions each for the Blackberry Playbook, HP Slate, Dell Streak, and Asus Transformer.

The Job Search Goes Mobile (But Has Recruiting Followed Suit?)

In 2011, market research consultancy Potential Park surveyed 30,000 jobseekers and found that 19% use mobile in their job search and 50% said they could imagine doing so. At the time, these numbers seemed like compelling evidence for developing a mobile recruiting strategy.

Fast forward to 2012, and the MedReps.com survey of medical sales job seekers finds 77% of respondents use a mobile device in their job search! If medical sales recruiters aren’t already using mobile to recruit, this new data should make defining mobile recruitment strategies a top priority. See the graph for the most common mobile job search activities:

Getting Started with Mobile Recruiting requires medical sales recruiters first find a way to format their job postings for mobile. This means either posting them on a mobile optimized website or on a mobile app. Other mobile recruiting tactics include text message marketing, location targeting, using QR codes in recruitment ads, and integrating mobile with an existing ATS. There is a lot of buzz around these tactics, but at this point, job seekers are primarily using their mobile devices to browse job postings, so formatting job postings for mobile is clearly the place to start.

Next: Social Trends Among Medical Sales Professionals