Mobile recruitment is a great option to enhance how you recruit.
Mobile recruitment is fantastic!
Recruitment is all about reaching the right candidates and managing their applications from receipt to hire. At the same time, in many countries, people are now using their mobiles as their primary source of computing power. Smartphone penetration and usage is increasing and reaching saturation on a worldwide scale. People access their mobiles to find information on numerous subjects such as shopping, social activities and also jobs. Using mobile recruitment tactics is thus a key element to a company’s mix of reaching the right skills.
Mobile marketing in general
While email campaigns have open rates of 10%-20% and click-through rates of less than 10%, SMS messages are opened 95% of the time and have the option of a shortlink in them, meaning that the eventual message can contain much more than just 160 characters of text.
Companies wanting to reach the job seekers they need will definitely require a section of their online recruitment plan to involve mobile and cellphone communication. By that, I do not mean tailoring emails for mobile screens or focussing on having mobile numbers for everyone on your database. I am more interested in using mobile as a communication tool in general, especially included SMS.
Many people are not looking to SMS any longer due to Instant Messenging (IM) tools such as WhatsApp and Telegram, however SMSs are still delivered through APIs which WhatsApp does not have (but Telegram does). Also, every phone has an SMS app, while not everyone uses IM apps, or at least those IM apps you would want to send to.
txthire in South Africa
In South Africa, a company called graylink has a product called txthire, where client companies can advertise vacancies to the lower income market with a tagline of something like: “SMS APPLY to 33333”. Job seekers initiate this and are sent through a set of pre-screening questions on back-and-forth SMS messages, receiving a proper application instructions only if they qualify through these questions.
A potential client may be a large corporate looking for a readily available, low-income skill. Using txthire, a company with a large amount of applications to deal with cuts down on the amount of applications, and in addition qualifies the candidates who do apply. The job seekers also save money in knowing that they do or do not qualify
Giraffe in South Africa
Also in South Africa, a company called Giraffe is reducing recruitment costs for employers by utilising mobile recruitment techniques, allowing jobseekers to create a simple CV using their cellphones right off their website. The service is free for job seekers and allows companies to schedule interviews, see CVs and do background checks automatically.
The power of SMS mobile recruitment is really effective in certain countries and for certain companies (usually larger firms). Using the above-mentioned services or not, a firm can reduce recruitment division workload and increase the effectiveness of its communication with candidates. Mobile recruitment is definitely worth looking into to achieve these objectives.
