Sharpen your communication skills with text marketing. Learn more about why SMS is an essential tool for recruiters looking to stay agile in the field.
Approximately two-thirds of recruiters struggle to find relevant candidates. This challenge comes as no surprise given that 86% of the most qualified candidates for your open positions are already employed and not actively seeking a new job.
It’s tough to strike a balance between reaching out to large groups to increase the odds, and personally targeting strong potential candidates. Toeing the line between high volume and personal communication is mass texting’s strong suit and one of the reasons it is such a valuable tool for recruiters.
Mass text messaging, also known as bulk SMS, is a communication service that lets an organization or business send a single text message to thousands of subscribers at the same time. Its time-saving abilities allow you the efficiency of high-volume communication with all the intimacy of a direct-to-inbox text.
Seeing that your LinkedIn direct message was read but not responded to stings like lemon juice in a paper cut. Lucky for you, there’s no way to slice yourself with a keyboard 😏. Let’s explore some of the main reasons why mass texting can help you with your recruiting needs.
With any mass texting campaign, the first thing that must be secured is compliance. In order for your texts to be legal, recipients must give you express, written consent to receive messages. This works to your benefit for a few reasons, the biggest one being it automatically vets your candidate pool down to the people with the most interest. No more wasting time or resources on folks who are uninterested or unavailable.
Once potential job candidates have opted in to receive texts, the ways you can connect them with opportunities skyrocket. It’s all about getting your digital foot in the door!
While texting is typically regarded as personal and reserved for close friends and family, it has gradually become one of the most preferred communication channels across varying age groups. With recruiting especially, over 80% of people use text messaging for business, and 15% said that more than half of their messages are for business purposes.
Recruiters are in a unique position with 90% of leads preferring to be texted rather than called. Despite any perceived negative stigmas, the polls don’t lie. Texting your leads with job tips or position openings has a universal appeal.
Just as there are people who hate all things universally loved, like the face puppies make when they sneeze or warm towels straight from the dryer, there are some instances where mass texting could have the opposite intended effect on a candidate.
As a general rule, maintaining ethical and compliant methods of procuring subscribers will generally keep your contacts happy. There are also a few other things you can do to avoid annoying candidates.
Advertising the fact that your business is text-enabled is the key to gaining traction. SimpleTexting clients who have a strong marketing strategy for their SMS program have been known to gather thousands of subscribers within a matter of months. In short, the only way to know if candidates are interested is to give them the option!
Texting is all about automation and making things simpler. Before people started texting “brb” you can’t imagine the microseconds they were wasting typing out “be right back” in its entirety. But aside from text lingo, how can text recruitment improve your flexibility?
For starters, it can allow you to communicate with multiple people at once keeping your calendar much more open. For example, schedule interviews while simultaneously sending out pre-screening surveys to candidates.
With the creation of templates, you can even save time by replicating frequently sent messages!
On the flip side, the flexibility presented by texting is helpful for the 75% of candidates, who are in the job pool of “currently employed but considering a job change.” Most of these people can’t respond to your calls during business hours due to the fragility of their current situation. Texting provides a discrete alternative that allows people to engage with recruiters during the most convenient time for both parties.
Flexibility, above all things, is one of the most crucial attributes for a recruiter to possess.
Preserving efficiency is important, and in the digital age, you’re likely to be working with lots of marketing tools day-to-day. Recruiting and HR software specifically may or may not be involved at your company. While text marketing programs like SimpleTexting do standalone, that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of playing well with others. In fact, our platform has evolved to adapt to that very purpose. There are two main approaches you can take to integrate your existing recruitment systems with text marketing.
Texting is accessible to anyone, anywhere. The average person checks their phone over 150 times a day, and 91% of people polled report that they always have their phone within arm’s reach.
With that sort of reach, you’re diminishing limiting factors like income, geography, or internet access, that prevent you from connecting to potential candidates. While a great deal of people in 2019 equate cell phones with smartphones, just remember you can text with any type of mobile device (long live the Motorola Razr).
In the end, recruiting all comes down to communication, and mass texting is a way to quickly and efficiently communicate with large groups of people at once. Through robust data collection tools and personalization opportunities, texting can help you reach out to new candidates across the country. The process might look a little something like this.
Step 1: Create a web form advertising my text recruitment program and encourage those looking for new career opportunities to register.
Step 2: Create a series of autoresponders that are triggered when a new lead signs up for the text program. Solicit information from them to be logged including education level, career category, and geographic preferences.
Step 3: Set up custom segments for each of the autoresponder categories and begin sorting subscribers into categories for various campaigns based on their interests.
Step 4: Send out campaigns to leads based on their interests, and communicate one-on-one with candidates who have texted in about certain positions or opportunities.
Step 5: Set up interviews via SMS and send out links to pre-screening surveys that will ensure I’m investing time and resources into a valuable candidate.
Step 6: Poll subscribers and ask them how they are enjoying the SMS surveys and solicit feedback for ways I can improve the program.
💡As an added strategy, consider a switch to a number with a specific, local area code to target recruits in a certain area.
Getting started with SMS is easy, and we’ll set you up with a free 14-day trial just to prove it! Peruse our resources on SimpleTexting Academy to discover some of the tactics that you can implement in your marketing strategy as we demonstrated in the example flow above.
Another good resource to explore is our SMS best practices guide that will walk you through the dos and don’ts of the mass texting method. Our beginner’s list of SMS templates can also start getting your creative juices flowing!
Still have some questions? Chat with someone on our support team, we’re available seven days a week!
In the words of Jim Collins, “Great vision without great people is irrelevant.” It’s our vision at SimpleTexting to help you go out and reach those great people you’re searching for.
Meghan Tocci is a content strategist at SimpleTexting. When she’s not writing about SaaS, she’s trying to teach her puppy Lou how to code. So far, not so good.
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