Ready to start texting candidates? Awesome, let's do this 💪
Below are 5 best practices to keep in mind to ensure you boost your response rates and have the best possible candidate experience.
#1: Keep it local 🌎
Local numbers help boost response rates, so be sure to pick an area code that's representative of the primary market you recruit in. We'll get you set up with a local area code during onboarding.
Grayscale uses standard 10-digit phone numbers for texting (versus a 5-digit short codes) to keep your messages from looking spammy to candidates.
#2: Introduce yourself and give context
Always make sure to introduce yourself in your first outreach to a candidate:
"Hi Amanda! I'm Ty Abernethy, a recruiter at Grayscale."
Make sure to give context as to why you reached out:
"I saw your resume on LinkedIn and was really impressed with your enterprise SaaS sales experience."
If this is a cold outreach to a candidate, the goal should be to start a conversation with the candidate, not to convert them to a phone interview or applicant with a single text. Start a conversation with a call-to-action like this:
"Can I send you details of our sales manager role? If you're interested, I'd love to discuss further."
#3: Keep it concise 🤐
We recommend keeping your messages fairly succinct as a general rule. This is particularly true for the first "cold" message you send to candidates.
The character limit for a single SMS message is 160 characters, however most modern phones and networks support concatenation and segment and rebuild messages beyond that.
However, for your first "cold" text to a candidate or group of candidates, keep within the 160 character limit. Some carriers may flag your message as spam if you send a lengthy cold text message to someone you've never texted before.
Once the candidate responses, you can get a bit more verbose. Grayscale allows messages of up to 480 characters, or 3 message segments, so feel free to expand your messages after a candidate has engaged.
#4: Don't link too soon 🙅♀️
Phone carriers aren't big fans of people sending links in a cold text message (meaning the first message you've ever sent to a candidate). Their algorithms can flag this as spam, especially if the only thing you send is a link.
Try to avoid sending a job description in your first outreach -- instead, warm the candidate up first before sending. This ensures you avoid spam filters, but it also ensures the best possible candidate experience.
#5: Keep it conversational 😎
While texting, make sure your messages are conversational in tone. That means, instead of obsessing over grammar and punctuation, start obsessing about communicating like a real human, in a conversational manner.
Messages that are conversational in tone convert much higher than corporate, canned messages do.
That said, we're not suggesting you be unprofessional or sloppy -- simply that you strive to communicate like a real human would while texting -- concise, conversational, and human.
Questions? Chat with us below for quick answers.