Everything You Need To Know About Text Recruiting
Text recruiting can help organizations to reach many candidates at the same time with an accurate and similar description. Read further to learn more about Text Recruiting.
Mobile-focused, generational groups like Millennials and Gen Z are taking over candidate pools in the race to employment in full-force. Candidates want to feel connected to the recruiter, and they want faster means of communication and they want to work for a company that cares about their preferences and needs. New technologies in recruitment like text recruiting are making this increasingly possible by providing businesses with the opportunity to form relations with candidates in new ways. It’s changing the game and shaping the way businesses recruit.
Why Text Messaging Makes an Effective Recruitment Channel
75% of adults use a smartphone and global phone usage is expected to surpass the 5 billion mark by 2019. Additionally, 80% of people are now using text messaging for their business work. In other words, smartphones are diversifying the recruitment processes for companies in addition to email, direct mailers, or other forms of communication (or advertising).
Text recruiting has become the need of the hour, considering the current scenario of lockdown in various parts of the world. It proves to be a more convenient approach to provide accurate information to the candidates about the job description, salary, and other aspects that they need to know.
Text recruiting can help organizations to reach many candidates at the same time with an accurate and similar description. HR has to write a job description, eligibility of the candidate, and the cost to the company (CTC), and send a message to the candidates in the database of the company.
What about communication in real-time?
If you are a recruiter and you aren’t using text messaging to communicate with job seekers, you’re already behind the curve. While mass messaging or texting to candidates has shown to have some downfalls, 1:1 messaging may be another story altogether.
- Text messaging for recruitment or hiring can feel more personal, which as any good recruiter knows is a key component of the hiring process.
- The average person checks their phone over 50 times in a day and 91% of people report always having their phone within arms reach, meaning your message is sure to be seen.
- Texting with candidates is the preferred medium of communication for the ages between 18–44.
- 99% of mobile phone owners have a text messaging service.
- Text messaging is an immediate form of communication, eliminating the need for voicemails and phone tag.
- Text messages are read over 95% of the time, while emails only receive an average of 20% open rate.
7 Top Tips For Effective Text Recruiting
1. Use Speed to Your Advantage
The main difference between email and texting is speed. While the average response time on emails is about two minutes, it can be deceptive. It can take days or weeks for the first email to come through, after which you begin a conversation. Meanwhile, text alerts or notifications on phones are ever-present, so you won’t have to wait long for a candidate to text you back.
2. Don’t Spoil Your Opener
Text messages have an incredible 98% open rate. Compared to email’s inadequate 23% of open rate, you start to see why texting is such a tempting avenue for recruiters. Just because it’s harder to filter out text spam, it doesn’t mean you can be more reckless about how you approach candidates. Your text will still come up with a random phone number, so be sure to introduce yourself, be human, and offer them the job as quickly as possible in a professional manner.
3. Text with Caution
No matter what the response rate or speed advantages of texting maybe, some candidates don’t like getting a text from their recruiter. Specifically, over 45% candidates consider text messages a little too invasive. Although 43% of candidates consider hiring managers who use texts as professionals, it’s not a far cry from the 32% of talent who consider them unprofessional.
4. Keep Business Hours in Mind
One of the fastest ways to make your candidates feel like you’re invading their privacy is to text them when they’d rather talk about their job search. Specifically, 24% of candidates think it’s inappropriate to text them outside working hours, making it the most common reason candidates might not accept your texts.
5. Text to Maximize Advertising
Texting is a powerful way to interact with people. Build awareness of open opportunities by incorporating a text keyword in storefront signage, social media posts, or business cards. Drive talent to text for information on job opportunities. Instantly generate a pipeline of talent by directing these candidates to a job application or talent community form.
6. Text to Schedule Interviews Instantly
Schedule candidate interviews or phone screens in real-time by texting a link to self-schedule. Through self-service scheduling, reduce time-to-fill by bringing top talent to the office faster and improve the candidate experience by providing the power to instantly schedule interviews from a phone.
7. Include Call To Action (CTA) Messages
Including a clear Call To Action (CTA) message is the most important aspect of text recruiting as a precise and accurate message with an eye-catching context will make the candidate more interested in the job role. It is better to put a link to apply for the job in the text message as it will become more convenient for the candidate.
Conclusion
Candidates will revert on the number or the other CTS provided in the text message if they are interested, and this will make the hiring process easier, reducing the HRs efforts of calling an individual candidate. Text recruiting ensures only the interested or shortlisted candidates get shortlisted for further process easing the HR’s workload of selecting the right candidates from a long list. Even though it is a pretty precise and convenient way to attract talents, some aspects will be needed to be taken care of while text recruiting, which is the future of recruiting.
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