SMS for recruitment agencies – how to send text messages to job candidates and temp staff

Text messaging is a very efficient way of communicating with job candidates and temporary staff, and can be easily integrated with any agency software or email client you are using.

With increased competition in the recruitment sector, trying to find ways to differentiate your business from the competition is becoming harder. With companies sending out vacancies to multiple employment agencies, there is high competition to fill vacancies before competitors.

There is also a lack of client loyalty to a particular recruitment agency. Often it is the agency that can get work for the person first that will keep a job seeker happy. If you can’t alert a candidate to a job before your competitor, you risk losing valuable business.

Attempting to contact potential candidates can also be a frustrating, expensive and time-consuming experience, with many unwilling or unable to answer phone calls, and emails often ending up in spam folders or ignored altogether.

Improving response rates for recruitment

Within minutes of a vacancy becoming available, rather than calling around, you could text the relevant jobs details via bulk SMS to all of your registered job seekers, making instant savings in both time and costly phone calls. Job seekers who receive this text message can then instantly reply via text and either accept or decline your offer of work; a cheap alternative for them to answer your request and one that has been proven to be more effective and increases response rates.

Perhaps the biggest headache for any job agency is ensuring positions are fulfilled on time. This scenario is particularly relevant for temporary staff, where timing is essential; organisations needing emergency cover or looking for more staff due to seasonal or event changes. For example, you may suddenly receive a booking to supply 30 waiters and waitresses for an event the following week. Normally this would involve making 30+ separate telephone calls whilst you attempt to fill each position.

Once a vacancy has been received it’s simply a case of drafting the text message and then sending it to the candidates via any email client. In addition, this also allows people who receive your message to reply as they would to a normal text message. This reply is then received directly into your email inbox allowing you to easily manage at your convenience.

Automating SMS via recruitment software

Alternatively, this whole process could also be sent by your agency software, utilising ToucanText’s SMS API, or automated by integrating SMS Automation within the software. As soon as a vacancy is entered into the system the automation software can be triggered to create and issue a notification via SMS to all relevant candidates. One again, any replies will be immediately entered into the system.

“SMS is very effective, precise and simple. It is our way of communicating, other than just email and phone calls. It records both ways for us and sits there on the records. That’s also applicable to clients as well,” explained John Stanton, Chairman, Mynt Recruitment. “Every single week, every one of our active temps gets sent two text messages that are issued via our recruitment software. They are sent out in bulk, branch by branch. For example, there are 423 staff working today and each one will get a text saying: How’s it been this week? Hope you’re OK. We’ll book you in for next week. Each response we receive from them goes straight back to the branch and into the system.”

Common text messages sent by employment agencies

Once a candidate has shown an interest in a vacancy you can keep them updated via SMS. This can not only reduce the cost of phone calls but is also more efficient and tends to guarantee that they will actually read the information. Messages can include:

  • Qualifying candidates with screening questions – do you have experience in…?
  • Interview confirmation alerts
  • Information about location and directions
  • Reminders about interview dates and times
  • Enquiries about how the interview went
  • Dates for rescheduling interviews
  • Information about job fairs

The same process is also beneficial for day to day contact with temp staff, such as sending reminders to return timesheets and alerting workers when pay is available. SMS can also be used to make sure your database is up to date with registered clients, such as sending texts to ask whether they are still looking for work or not.

As well as communicating with candidates, SMS could also be used to keep in contact with mobile agency staff or IT support teams, such as reminders to contact a certain candidate or issuing alerts for server crashes etc.

The benefits of SMS in recruitment

Incorporating SMS into recruitment software and daily routines is extremely simple and can provide a number of benefits including:

  • Reducing the cost of phone calls with candidates
  • Enabling jobseekers to easily reply to messages
  • Improving efficiency and response rates
  • Quicker, more reliable communication
  • Enhancing communication via two-way messaging
  • Reducing time-consuming tasks
  • Enabling staff to dedicate time to other duties

If you would like to use SMS in your communications, or would like to integrate SMS into your agency software, please call 0330 998 0022 or email info@toucantext.com.

SMS for Recruitment Agencies

Text messaging is a very efficient way of communicating with job candidates and temporary staff, and can be easily integrated with any agency software or email client you are using.

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