HR professionals are increasingly experiencing the impact of mobile technologies on the recruitment process.

Aditya Narayan Mishra, President, Staffing and Marketing Director, for Randstad India highlights the changes that mobile and tablet technologies will likely bring in recruitment. According to him, "There are three main stakeholders in this scheme - candidates, companies and recruitment agencies. Each of these stakeholders has different scale of requirements, but one common thread is their increasing inclination to adopt mobile and tablet based technologies. Candidates will gain access to location based job openings in various companies and this will be powered by HR agencies and online job portals. Companies have been working to enhance the recruitment process and candidates' on-boarding experience and the current technologies will be leveraged well."

He expects the rise in mobile and tablet technologies to impact the following processes:

1. Identification: Candidates to identify potential companies and start interaction with them.

2. Deferred video based interview: Companies will leverage customised applications to send questions to candidates and they can send in their video responses via the same application. This can be reviewed by multiple stakeholders leading to the next stages of recruitment.

3. Application Tracking System: This is an area that is a challenge for many companies and candidates. He believes, mobile based interfaces can enable real time updates to happen and this can give clear visibility to candidates.

4. Large scale recruitment and on-boarding: Staffing companies and others who do periodical large recruitment drives would like to automate the entire paper based recruitment process and switch to mobile technology.

5. Bringing new employees up to speed: many IT companies have their own mobile applications linked to their internal social networking site and by developing mobile interfaces, customised to new employees; it can help new employees understand the company's internal processes.

Talking about some of the upcoming recruitment oriented mobile technologies in 2013, he says, "There are many popular iOS and Android based stand-alone and fully integrated mobile applications like Bullhorn, eMpact, MaxHire, HireVue, etc."

The rising demand for mobile and tablet technology in recruitment can have a flipside too. According to Mishra, "The experience that companies and HR agencies want to create depends a lot on the technology interface. If the experience is not standardised or uniform across platforms and software versions, it will have a negative impact on the image."

"If this mobile interface is not fully integrated with the backend system and not properly backed by IT infrastructure, the application tracking system will not work. The success of this platform is, how quickly and easily candidates and companies can be brought together and how vacant positions can be filled. So, instead of taking a piecemeal approach, it is recommended to take a holistic approach considering the interests of all stakeholders and capabilities of the company/ partners," he adds.

The Bring Your Own device (BYOD) trend, where candidates are allowed to bring their personal mobile devices to work, is one of the facilitating factors enabling the rise in mobile technology. Mishra says, "BYOD will enhance the adoption but first companies should have viable systems and applications in place. Also, BYOD as a trend is yet to be fully embraced by companies as they need to update their IT security policies and build systems to safeguard their environment."