You still have to mail a letter to get hired in these sectors
Recruitment is broken in the retail and hospitality sectors because it is stuck in the past, according to the founder of an app focused on helping job seekers.
Polina Montano is co-founder and COO of recruitment app Job Today. Since launching nine months ago in Spain, it has placed people in 10 thousand jobs in London, Paris, Madrid and Barcelona.
"We are focusing on service industries such as retail and hospitality," she told CNBC.
"Hiring for those industries is broken."
"Today, 75 percent of hiring for these industries is happening off-line. How crazy is that? Today, when all of us are living in the mobile era, you still have people on the streets with a paper resume in their hands."
Job Today, which is currently free to use, aims to speed up the recruitment process, with job-seekers receiving a response to an application within 24 hours.
"We started this company because we wanted to help millions of people to find jobs they like the same day," said Montano. "It's a very common problem for employers in this sector to be faced with a need to hire people on a very short notice."
The recruitment sector is currently going through a digital transformation. For instance, dating services are applying their expertise to helping job seekers.
"It's been really interesting to see dating brands such as eHarmony move into the Human Resources sector, with their Elevated Careers job hunting service," said Jonathan Openshaw, editor at The Future Laboratory, to CNBC via email.
"It's quite an innovative move to take the same functionality and mentality that we see in dating and social – which is basically all about chemistry and connection – and applying it to the jobs market."