SMS for Recruitment

Using bulk SMS applications can dramatically improve the productivity of a recruitment team. Here is how ...

Email & Phone Calls

Recruitment teams usually spend a substantial amount of time making calls and sending emails. For instance ...

- Phone calls are made and emails are sent to invite candidates to attend a Test or Interview

- Phone calls are made to convey the results of a selection process to candidates.

- Emails are sent to stay in touch with offered-and-not-joined-yet candidates. In industry parlance this is called keeping "potential joinees warm"

It is possible to convey messages to candidates faster, cheaper and more reliably by using a bulk SMS application. These applications also support delivery receipts and return SMSes.

How SMS Can Help

A good bulk SMS application can convey messages to several candidates at once and receive delivery receipts. It can also recieve responses from candidates sent via SMS and register these responses. Here is how it works ...

- You are a recruiter who wants to schedule interviews for a 100 candidates

- You list out the names and mobile numbers of the 100 candidates in an Excel sheet.

- You then write down the time and venue address for each of the candidates. You also add a line saying "Please confirm your participation by replying "Yes".

- You upload the excel sheet onto a bulk SMS application

- The bulk SMS application SMSes the messages to the 100 applicants and shows you the delivery receipts for the SMSes that have been successfully sent

- Candidates who recieve the SMSes send back SMSes to confirm their participation. You run a report off the bulk SMS application and take stock of how many SMS confirmations you have got.

- For those for whom confirmations have not come up, you make phone calls.

Clearly the advantages in using a bulk SMS application are that in the span of an hour its possible to SMS upto a 1000 applicants and recieve delivery receipts. And in 2 -3 hours time its possible to to recieve about 600 to 700 confirmations. A recruiter can then choose to call the remaining 300 or so applicants and work to get confirmations. This substantially reduces the amount of time recruiters spend on the phone scheduling candidates. The other benefit is also that SMS has a better chance of reaching the job applicant compared to phone calls or emails. Since most people are in meetings during the day, they would not answer a phone call. Also, most people check their personal email ids once a day or once in two days. But they certainly check SMSes all the time. And on average, 80% to 90% of people with work experience own mobile phones.

Other Details

Several bulk SMS applications are available in the market. I have used the application from valuefirst (www.valuefirst.com). I prefer this application since it has a User Interface that is similar to Outlook and is extremely easy to use. Bulk SMS applications usually cost about Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000 depending on features. In addition to this there is an SMS cost which is usually Rs 1 for sending and Rs 2 for receiviing though these vary widely depending on the plan chosen.

The Future

One of the emerging areas where SMS will be used in Recruitment is in Ad response. Candidates today read a Job Ad in the newspaper (Times of India Ascent) note down the email address or URL where they have to apply, go to office and sometimes forget about it. Others remember but send their CVs 3 -4 days after they have seen the Job Ad. Response to Job Ads is rarely instantaneous but using SMS it can be made instantaneous.

Lets assume the Job Ad in the paper has a Job portal code ... for instance a Naukri code and a Monster code. All you have to do is send your CV identification number to the Naukri code or the Monster code and Naukri or Monster could forward your CV from their portal to the email id mentioned in the Job Ad. This can enable job applicants to apply as soon as they see the Job Ad which makes the recruitment process more efficient.