Using SMS in Recruitment

Posted By: Thomas Shaw, 9:54pm Thursday 08 January 2009

SMS is an important marketing medium, but has limited application in Recruitment/Job Search. Most of the messages you could send are transactional. The key to a successful SMS marketing campaign relies on the 3 pillars - planning, content and execution. In this blog post I have just summarised my thoughts and ideas into various groups - Uses in Recruitment, Advantages, Disadvantages, Measuring SMS, Questions to ask yourself before sending SMS, Tips and Common mistakes I hear from recruiters.

We use SMS in our own business mostly as a notification service for myself and other admins. When a sale, or new directory listing is submitted we are notified - as I belive it is important to process a sale as soon as possible. I have also integrated it into our various job boards - When a new job, client order, or client wants to sms a user. But how can you use it?

Uses in Recruitment

Notify job seekers when a new role matches there profile "Thomas, 2 new roles with CLIENT, PAY, LOCATION. For more info URL"
Remind candidates about attending interview. "Thomas, just a reminder you have a interview with CLIENT, TIME/DATE, LOCATION. Problems call me"
Administration "Thomas, 5 new resumes from JOB BOARD" or "Thomas, JOB AD TITLE is about to close"
Please call "Thomas, please call RECRUITER regarding MESSAGE"
Timesheets "Thomas, timesheet due DATE/TIME, questions CONTACT"
Payroll "Thomas, $PAY deposited to bank account DATE. Check email for pay slip. URL"
Referrals "Do you know a JOBTITLE? LOCATION, PAY RATE, REFERAL REWARD more info URL"
Most ATS or Recruitment Databases have an SMS function or module available to use

Advantages

The personal nature of mobile phones makes SMS marketing a very powerful tool.
Most mobile users keep it on them all the time - meaning they can be effective for time sensitive messages.
Users are inclined to read virtually every SMS they get - unlike email and other means of advertising.
Bulk SMS marketing is very economical and one can send thousands of text messages to consumers at low prices.
Bulk SMS saves time - instead of writing a message and then sending it to each mobile subscriber, one message is created and then sent to a whole group of subscribers.
Tracking of SMS delivery and responses is very easy.
Automated
Delivery of the text messages is almost instant.
Sending SMS can be done from a software application or through a internet website

Disadvantages

Opt-in. Need to get permission from users before sending SMS
SMS message is 140 - 160 characters long. You may need to refer the user to a website or email for further information
Impersonal
Can dilute a message
No emotion, mechanical

Measuring SMS

Open rates
Traffic to URL/Website links
Offer acceptance
Replies or response numbers/rate
Redemption rate
Brand awareness

Questions to ask yourself before sending SMS

Why are you communicating via SMS? Should you call? Email?
What do you want to achieve?
What is your message? You only have a limited number of characters. Use them wisely
When should the message be sent?
Can we personalise the message?
Who are we targeting?
Is viral marketing a possibility?
Do you need to cap the responses?
Do we have you systems to send out messages, handle the volume and responses?
Who is identified as the sender?

Common mistakes I hear from recruiters

We did not target the right market, the message was not relevant
We did not identify ourselves as the sender, we received many responses "who is this" and so forth
Poor ad copy
Targeting wrong audience with wrong offer/message
Messages sent out at wrong time
Not allowing recipient to unsubscribe
Spelling mistakes and typos
No personalisation
SMS system fails

Tips

Personalise - "Hi FIRST_NAME, just a reminder about your interview with CLIENT_NAME at TIME/DATE, LOCATION"
Always include details to unsubscribe
Talk in the same language as your customers. Lrn txt spk-especially for youth markets
Test different networks (ie. Telstra, Optus, 3, Vodaphone)
Check to see if the appropriate replies are sent etc
If it is a competition, plan for unusual/wrong answers and have suitable replies in place.
Test language, typos and technical (not all symbols will come out as you expect).
Shop around for the best SMS wholesale provider. I use http://www.clickatell.com