At Handshake, we believe every student should have access to the building blocks of a meaningful career - regardless of who they know, where they grew up, or what university they happen to attend. Technology has a huge role to play in unlocking institutional social capital and levelling the playing field.
Digital poverty affects thousands of students - it’s impact has only increased as a result of Covid-19. During the pandemic, 18% of students reported having been impacted by lack of access to a laptop or computer, with 4% saying they were severely impacted.
This is where mobile comes in. 98% of the age group 16-24 have access to a smartphone.
At Handshake, we believe that mobile access is critical to keeping students connected.
Of course, mobile offerings aren't all or nothing. We like to think of it as a continuum. Having a responsive web experience is critical, especially for students who click on links or find the service through other means. Requiring those students to download an app introduces friction which drives disengagement, which is exactly why a fully mobile site is so important.
Responsive web apps are built using web designs that accommodate different screen sizes to ensure that content is consistently high quality. If you’re building a product from scratch, a responsive website that allows cross-platform accessibility lowers the cost of production.
In contrast, native apps are developed to run on a specific mobile operating system and are created in a programming language for OS. This provides better performance, as the well-written native app designed to leverage the unique hardware of the device will always run faster than a responsive web app. Native apps require more investment to build, especially if you want multiple operating systems - to have both iOS and Android access, you need to develop two versions of your app.
See this article by Adobe for a full summary of the trade-offs between native and responsive apps.
For us, the key things that led us to invest in native apps in addition to our responsive design were:
These things work together to make native apps uniquely positioned to create a great student experience, in our opinion.
On Handshake, we’ve found that mobile app users are generally more active across nearly all activities on the platform:
88.9% of active users on the iOS app, and 71.5% of active users on the Android app browsed for jobs, compared to only 22.8% on the web browser.
90% of active users on the iOS app, and 71.6% of active users on the Android app browsed for events, compared to only 31.1% on the web browser.
Of course, we also appreciate that the mobile experience doesn't exist in a vacuum and need to be complimented by mobile web.
To find out more about Handshake’s mobile offering, you can watch our webinar: A Mobile First Experience.
For more information on how Handshake is tackling digital disadvantages and other obstacles to an equal playing field for students and recent graduates, see our recent executive report, Bringing Humanity Back to Graduate Recruitment.
Industry experts share their experiences on Handshake’s Live Podcast.
The team at Handshake is delighted to be featured as part of an extensive supplement in the Times’ Raconteur pages on the global talent economy, and how businesses can build sustainable talent pipelines for the long-term.
Wonkhe @ Home: Nice work if you can get it examined the relationship between privilege, academic achievement and employment outcomes
