Access

When you’re job hunting, it’s crucial to give recruiters and hiring managers quick access to you. What’s best? Immediate access via their preferred mode of communication. Your smartphone gives you those capabilities. Do you want them talking to other candidates when they could be talking with you?

It’s also important for you to have quick access to the information pushes you have set up for yourself. Do you want to wait until you get back to your computer to learn about and respond to the perfect job opening?

More on Response Time

A networking contact returns your call. You talk. They want your resume. They’re going to walk it down the hall. Do you want to make them find it on LinkedIn? Do you want to wait until you get back to your computer to send it to them? No? Send it from your smartphone.

I keep my consulting bio attached to an email that I sent to myself. If a future client wants to see it, I can pull it out of my email archive, write a note, and send it in about a minute.

The Competition

LinkUp, a job opening aggregator, finds that 21% of job seekers access their site via smartphones. That number is much higher in some markets. See here for more stats. They’re probably a good ballpark estimate of how many job seekers have smartphones.

Do you want to be one of the most accessible (see above) and most responsive (see above) job seekers or everyone else?

Adaptability

Your adoption of current technology demonstrates your abilities to learn and adapt to change. De facto. No question.

Conversely, projecting “Luddite” to prospective employers can raise concerns about your abilities to learn and adapt to change. It’s better that they never question these job performance essentials.

You Won’t Get Lost on Your Way to Meetings and Interviews

Smartphones such as Verizon’s Droid (not an affiliate) come loaded with GPS software. I tell Droid where I want to go and a lovely voice tells me, turn by turn, what to do. When I get where I’m going, Droid tells me, “You have arrived.”

Talk about a confidence booster!

The author, Donna Svei, is an executive search consultant, resume writer, and job search strategist. For information about working with Donna, click here.