The Ultimate Text Recruiting Guide

What Is Text Recruiting?

Text recruiting is the use of text messages to advertise job positions, communicate with applicants, and maintain contact throughout the hiring process. 

We see recruiters use SMS to:

• Send interview reminders
• Check in after an interview 
• Answer candidates’ questions
• Notify candidates of new opportunities
• Advertise new roles with Text to Apply
• And more!

Text messages can be used throughout the entire recruitment process, from initial contact all the way to extending a job offer. 

Why Text Recruiting Is Effective

Potential employees respond to texts in less than 60 seconds. Recruiters are reporting response rates of 60 to 70%.

If you are not set up to be mobile-first, then your candidate experience will suffer.

Consider that candidates can’t answer their phones at work and discuss job opportunities.

Texting allows you to communicate at scale and speed without turning every interaction into a time-consuming email or phone call.

121 business emails are sent and received each day, meaning it’s easy for your message to get lost.

It’s why recruiting teams use texting to increase response rates while drastically reducing response times.

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Why You Shouldn’t Use Your Personal Phone for Text Recruiting

While you might think it’s convenient to text from your personal cellphone, it leads to a host of problems. Here are just a couple:

• Strangers have your contact information. No one wants to wake up at 1 am to a text from an upset candidate. 
• It slows down the hiring process. There’s no way to automate texts like interview reminders.
• No transparency. Using your personal cell prevents other hiring managers/interviewers to pick up where you left off when communicating with a candidate.

When your text recruiting happens from a dedicated text messaging service, you can set up automation, keep your personal contact details private, and encourage collaboration.

How SMS Recruitment Works (With Examples)

In-demand candidates stay in the market for an average of 10 days before being hired so if your recruitment process is taking longer than that, you are inevitably compromising on the quality of hires. 

The fact that 90% of texts are opened within three minutes means that you can get in touch with shortlisted candidates faster, and therefore screen, interview, and fast track the hiring decision.

Here are some different ways you can use texting to improve speed to hire.

Text 1-on-1 with Candidates

SMS is not only a way to ensure your message is seen, it’s a great way to improve rapport and improve the candidate experience. Here are some recruitment message samples.

Send Applicants Updates

You can share updates about a candidate’s status, changes to the process, and deadlines for projects or references.

Interview Scheduling

While there is no excuse for getting the date or time wrong of an interview, it’s the number one reason candidates don’t show up. Make their lives easier by sending a text message reminder. 

Here are more sample SMS for interview invitations. 

Answer Candidates’ Questions

Encourage applicants to ask any questions they might have. It gives the applicant a feeling of relief knowing that the company is not “out of reach.”

Here’s how to use our SMS inbox to message 1-on-1 with applicants.

Promote Open Roles

The other common recruitment SMS use case is the promotion of new roles. There are two ways to do this:

1. Text an existing database of candidates
2. Promote a role with Text to Apply

Text an Existing Database 

Chances are you’re already collecting phone numbers of job candidates through online job applications. 

To start texting these people, you should add an unchecked box that a website visitor must check to provide express written consent that they want to sign up for your job notifications.

Here’s an example of this in action.

Then when you have a new role you can send out a text blast to your database following these steps.

Here’s an example recruiting text template advertising a new role.

Text to Apply

Here’s an example of Text to Apply in action.

People can text a keyword to a phone number and receive an automatic with a direct link to an application, a document outlining the role, or a link to more information.

A keyword is a word or phrase that jobseekers text to your phone number to receive an automated response. They also agree to receive future texts from your team.

The more places you advertise your keyword, the more applications you’ll receive. You can promote your keyword on social media, in physical locations, on your website, and anywhere candidates interact with your brand.

Here’s how easy it is to set up a keyword.

How to Choose the Best Recruiting Text Service

At this point, we should state the obvious: we’re a text recruiting tool. We’ve worked with thousands of recruiters to help them text with their candidates and advertise open positions, but we’re not going to do any hard selling here.

We encourage you to do your research, read plenty of reviews on third-party sites, and sign up for a free trial.

If you’re only starting to send recruitment SMS, here are some of the boxes you’ll want to tick when choosing a service:

• A lot of text messaging platforms allow you to either text 1-on-1 with customers or send bulk SMS. You want a platform like SimpleTexting that will enable you to both.
• Do you need to integrate with other platforms like your applicant tracking system (ATS) or send automated text messages? If so, you’ll want a service that offers multiple SMS integrations.
• If you plan on using a text recruiting software for two-way messaging with applicants, you want an SMS inbox with the functionality to manage multiple conversations.
• If you want to send weekly reminders to teams or staffing agencies to request timesheets, you’ll want to ensure recurring campaigns are available.

The final consideration is the cost of a text recruiting tool. The per-message price is a huge factor. It’s also worth understanding if credits rollover from one month to the next.

Here’s the Next Step

That’s it—everything you need to know about SMS recruitment in one straightforward guide. The next step is to sign up for a 14-day free trial and try it for yourself. 

If you have more questions, you can also request a demo. Alternatively, you can text or call us at (866) 450-4185 or use the chat at the bottom of your screen.