Are you using SMS for Recruitment?

Reaching out to a wide pool of candidates in a timely manner is critical for a smooth recruitment process. It’s important for the reputation of your business and brand. Using SMS software for communicating is the fastest and most reliable channel, outweighing email, post, and voice calls. The vast majority of recipients greatly prefer text messaging.

Why Use SMS for Recruitment?

The ultimate goal in recruitment is to attract the very best talent. You need to select the candidate who is the best fit for the job and the culture of your business. Modern managers are moving towards SMS as the preferred communication channel for recruitment as it gets the message out faster and is useful in the prescreening process for potential job candidates.

Mobile phones (especially smartphones) are becoming more essential in our daily lives. They keep our calendars, schedules, documents, payment systems, and much more at hand, and text messaging is also an instant channel for immediate notification and response.

Managers and recruiters spend a lot of time and effort attracting, researching, and selecting the ideal job candidates. Communication needs to be as fast and reliable as possible.

10 Reasons to Recruit with SMS

1. Reach Candidates Quicker and More Reliably than Email

Reasons why SMS for recruitment is the superior way to communicate - infographic

Almost 70% of the world’s population has a mobile phone and mobile coverage far exceeds that of internet connectivity. 55% of people worldwide are connected online, yet an internet connection is not always reliable. Most people do not check emails or social media messaging platforms constantly and only 21% of emails are even opened!

Text messages have an open rate of near 99% as they are received and read within three minutes of being sent in more than 90% of cases. This is an eight-fold greater response rate than for email.

2. Accelerate the Hiring Process with SMS

Traditional hiring processes relied on voice calls and direct mail communication but SMS dramatically improves these processes. Now you can complete the entire recruitment and selection process and hire your new employee in a fraction of the time, and this is especially important for contract or time-sensitive roles.

3. SMS Reduces Risk

This may actually be the most important benefit of using SMS for recruitment. Many job seekers or applicants may still be working in their previous position and do not wish it to be known that they are seeking employment elsewhere. One of the pain points for these applicants is taking recruitment calls while at work – finding somewhere private to discuss potential roles can be a challenge.

Given the more discreet nature of text messaging, you can also avoid those pesky games of phone-tag while they attempt to find appropriate times and places to return your call. Furthermore, this helps to put your candidates at ease.

4. Enable Easier Candidate Pre-Screening

Send a simple SMS to referred candidates to introduce yourself and seek information about whether they are interested in applying for a specific position. Request a phone call via SMS and also send a text message to referees to set up a mutually convenient time and channel for performing reference checks.

5. Send Timely Reminders

Ensure your interviewees have the best opportunity to be on time and prepared for interviews with reminders, directions, encouragement, and other welcoming tips. You can also remind candidates who are not attending to let you know so that you are not waiting on an interviewee who is never going to show up for their interview.

6. Build an Immediate Connection

Text messaging being received on handsets by 4 people, with sender working on a laptop

SMS is naturally personalised and conversational yet it’s also un-intrusive. Text messages are concise and delivered promptly to the palm of the recipient’s hand – and they’re easy to respond, instantly.

And with a text messaging service like ClickSend, you can send and receive text messages all in one place. You can even use your preferred email service (eg. Outlook, Gmail, etc) to send an email and have it converted to a text message.

7. Improve Job Seeker Experience

You should send job application updates via SMS rather than intrusive phone calls or emails that may or may not be delivered, seen, and opened. Using SMS benefits your business directly as well, by reducing both outbound and inbound phone calls so your existing employees can focus on other business tasks. Employee performance feedback tools can also be used to improve the hiring process and links can be sent via SMS.

8. Texting is Cost-Effective

Reduce costs for your company or other organisation by electing to use SMS for recruitment as your preferred communication channel.

9. Inform and Divide Candidates

You can segment jobseekers by skills, interest, industry, and more parameters with custom fields in your SMS software gateway platform. This will allow you to send the right job specifications and other information to the right recipient at the right time.

10. SMS is Easy to Integrate with your Recruitment Cycle

Use SMS at all stages of the recruitment process, from initial contact through following up and even reconnecting to re-establish a connection with a prior applicant for a new position.

Contact ClickSend today to Implement Text Messaging in Recruitment

Your wish to acquire top talent, right? If you are not yet leveraging SMS for recruitment, you may be missing out, and will ultimately waste time and resources on less effective hiring tactics. The future of recruitment is literally in the palm of your hand!

Recruitment is just one chapter in the overall story! Managing people relies on fast, efficient, effective communication, and with the right SMS software, text messaging with your team for superior people management has never been easier.

ClickSend provides superior tools and techniques for cost-efficient, effective communications within your business or other organisation, from using SMS for recruitment to orientating new employees, rostering, sending pay advice, sending alerts, and managing day-to-day processes. The right SMPP gateway API helps you achieve reliable, high-volume text messaging. At ClickSend, this is what we deliver – and so much more!

Contact us via the Live Chat on our website or sign up now!