5 Key benefits of SMS for the recruitment and staffing industry

You’re looking to hire to fill positions in your business. As you search for the best candidates, you’re competing against other companies that are also looking. It’s time to stand out.

At the bare minimum, you want to leave a great first impression, but how?

Though Linkedin and email are tried-and-true forms of communication, how people communicate has evolved. They’re now constantly connected and on-the-go.

That’s why text messaging is taking the recruiting world by the storm.

Five key benefits for recruitment and staffing

Though the humble text message hasn’t changed very much since its inception, its use cases have. It started as a communication tool for friends and family before they all veered towards mobile chat apps like WhatsApp. Now businesses use SMS to communicate with their customers.

This isn’t any different for recruiters and their job applicants and candidates. For them, it has streamlined the process, and here’s how.

1. Saves times and is convenient

Having an interview scheduled but not having a candidate show up is probably a worst-case scenario.

That’s a significant drop in productivity. Mistakes happen, and SMS reminders can reduce your number of no-shows.

Since text messages have a 98% open rate, and 90% of recipients open them within 3 minutes, candidates can reply to your SMS to confirm or cancel interviews or to ask questions on-the-go.

Text messages are also programmable. You can save time by automating your repetitive communications tasks like reminders and interview follow-ups, using SMS integrations that require zero coding knowledge.

For example, we have a direct SMS integration with JobAdder, a recruitment management platform. We also have over 1500 other integrations via Zapier.

2. Reduces risk

You’re working with people at the end of the day, and many of them may already have jobs. They wouldn’t want to receive a phone call in the middle of their workday, which takes up your valuable time too.

Text messages are more discreet, and they can respond very easily.

Documenting your conversations securely and privately is also important in reducing risk. If you use our Email to SMS feature, SMS that you send and receive gets saved in your inbox.

3. Builds an immediate connection

People connect with people.

Text messages are naturally conversational. To your candidates, it’ll feel like they’re having a conversation with a colleague, building an instant connection.

Emails are professional to a fault. It may be hard for candidates to feel like the message is genuine and not a generic template. They also don’t need to fight to use words that are status-quo.

That said, we always believe that you should use emails alongside SMS. For example, job offers are likely better via email. Both have their set of advantages and disadvantages.

4. Creates a competitive advantage

Nexxt, a recruitment company, surveyed over 11,000 job seekers about what they prefer when it comes to communication. Here’s what they found:

• 73% want to receive targeted jobs via text messaging
• 44% plan to apply right away on their smartphones; 53% of millennials prefer their smartphones
• 75% of Baby Boomers, 73% Gen X, and 68% of Millennials want to receive job opportunities via text

Using SMS will give you a competitive advantage because it expedites the hiring process.

Whenever there are new full-time positions available, you can immediately message your previous candidates. For temporary jobs, you can message your list of temporary workers, and they can reply immediately to fill.

If you sent them by email, it may take hours before they see it.

5. Takes less than five minutes to send

Last but not least, we have some extra resources to help you kick-start your SMS recruitment strategy.

We created these 12 time-saving SMS templates to help you get going. Copy, paste and adjust.