One of the ongoing discussions when posting jobs to your company website or to the job boards is which application format to use – the quick apply or the company apply.
Each tactic has its strengths and weaknesses, which we will walk through in this blog post.
Quick Apply
On the job boards, this is more commonly thought of as a “one-click” apply, or the apply that keeps you right on Indeed or ZipRecruiter (as well as some of the other job boards.)
Strengths of Quick Apply
- More applications for your team – especially with staffing agencies, the recruiters always need a constant flow of applications. Not just for today’s jobs but for tomorrow’s jobs and next week’s jobs. This is a humongous benefit to getting more applications from your recruitment spend.
- Ease of use for the job candidate. They never have to leave the platform, which is vital on mobile. (who has a resume on their mobile device?)
- With the right integration between the job board and your applicant tracking system, the applications can go right into your ATS. Yes, it is possible for someone to apply on Indeed or ZipRecruiter and for their candidate information to be attached directly to the job order in your ATS (Bullhorn for example, among others.)
Weaknesses of Quick Apply
- More applications for your team – we like to call this the fire hose effect. We can turn on that fire hose, but sometimes it’s hard to keep up. If your team can’t keep up with the amount of applications coming from Indeed or ZipRecruiter, then it’s wasting your recruitment spend as no one follows up in a timely fashion (or at all!)
- Quality of candidates can be lower. The job boards make it very simple to apply for jobs
- Candidates don’t just go into your database, they also go into the job board’s database. If someone applies right on Indeed or ZipRecruiter, yes, you get the information about the candidates that can go into your ATS, but they also go into the job board’s database. Then, when the emails go out overnight, your jobs appear next to your competition’s jobs in the same email to the same candidate.
Company Apply
This tactic is what is on your career site. When someone views jobs on the job board on your career portal, what is the process they must complete to apply for a job with your company.
Strengths of Company Apply
- Applications go right into your database. You aren’t relying on your team to monitor their email. If you don’t have an integration set up with Indeed, then you don’t have to manually put the information into your ATS. All of the candidates get tied directly to the open job order.
- Quality of candidates can be higher because the candidate must go through a longer process. The thought is that a more qualified and interested candidate will go through that longer process. A non-qualified candidate may fall off quickly since they aren’t truly interested or qualified for the job.
- The candidates only go into your database. You don’t share their information with anyone else.
Weaknesses of Company Apply
- Length of application can be a deterrent to some candidates, especially on mobile. The first time you see a job posting, do you really want to spend 20-30 minutes filling out an application for a temporary assignment? Or do you just want to learn more information from a recruiter?
- The application process can be UGLY on mobile. We have seen some bad ones. If you are asking for resumes on mobile, your conversion percentage is lower than it should be. If you are asking candidates to complete a number of fields on mobile, that gets frustrating.
What’s the Right Answer?
Honestly, there isn’t one right answer. The right answer matches your business goals. We work with companies who prefer the quick apply while we also work with companies who want the company apply.
One tactic to evaluate is the length of application on your career site. Do you really need 10 pages of information the first time someone expresses interest in your job? Or can you treat their first interest as a warm lead, where you just focus on a quick capture method of name, email and phone number? Then your team can work on qualifying the candidate to see if they should complete the full application.
Are you spending at least $2,000 per month in recruitment advertising? If the answer is yes, then you are probably wasting money in that budget! The recruitment marketing team at Haley Marketing is ready to help you reduce that wasted spend. Contact our team today to learn more. Or – read our awesome case study that shows how we increased applications by 61% AND reduced job board spend by 13%.
