Long gone are the days of late-night phone calls and telco companies offering tiered cell phone plans that are priced by minutes. Smartphone capabilities have increasingly advanced and so have the amount of users. Today more than 60% of people worldwide now own a smartphone - a whopping 3.5 billion users worldwide! And even though we are offered a large variety of communication channels through a plethora of instant messaging apps (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WeChat, Telegram, etc.), ‘traditional’ SMS text messaging is still the most commonly used form of communication across all cell phone users globally as and is a native function on every cell phone coming out of a factory.

‍

The Modern Workforce are Texters

According to the latest North America Staffing Industry Report, over 70% of the current workforce is compiled of Millennial and Gen Z candidates, and text messaging is their #1 preferred method of communication. Most Millennials and Gen Zs only know the world as one with smartphones and Wi-Fi – providing instant gratification and convenience. Many Gen Zs and iGens were texting on phones before learning how to properly type on a keyboard or write their name with a pen!

For these ‘text-first’ candidates, ‘company culture’ is the most important factor when considering a new job. By showcasing modern recruitment practices, modern candidates can identify similar values to their own. Texting is very much a part of the modern candidate’s everyday life – almost like second nature so by using text messaging as a key communication tool, candidates become comfortable quicker and are faster to respond, while making the recruitment process feel less intimidating for them. The casual, yet straight-forward, text messages that recruiters send to candidates provides a window into the company’s personality and culture.

Texting to Improve Candidate Experience

Providing a modern communication channel for modern candidates captures their attention and resonates with their attitudes and values; all while improving recruitment workflow and efficiency. Two of the largest roadblocks that candidates identify as ‘turnoffs’ in the job search process are unresponsiveness and lack of consistent communication - this is where text recruiting comes in!

Rectxt improves recruiters’ response rates and overall productivity. Rectxt’s Chrome extension is a great tool because it allows recruiters to send customized text campaigns to their talent pools and track each candidate’s application status easier; therefore, improving the candidate’s overall experience and a recruiter’s efficiency during the recruitment life cycle.

In our previous blog post, we mentioned that ‘slow and steady’ does NOT win the race in recruitment, and that engaging with superstar candidates can easily be done faster with text recruiting. A whopping 98% of SMS text messages are read, while only 20% of emails are read. Not to mention, it takes an average of 90 seconds for someone to respond to a text, but 90 minutes to respond to an email: texting is 60X faster than email!

Recruiting in the 21st Century

So the real question is, if modern candidates are entering the workforce with such expectations, why are  organizations still relying on traditional communication mediums such as phone and email to engage with them?

In our research, we found a few reasons why: 

Behaviours in the 21st Century

As calls from scammers and automated spam calls have steadily increased, modern candidates are less likely to answer a phone call than ever before.

Text messaging offers immediate communication, free of the back-and-forth of email and immune to the phone-tag games that come along with telephone outreach. Text recruiting software like Rectxt are a must-have tool that should be in EVERY recruiter’s toolbox.