One of the best methods for recruitment advertising is mobile outreach. Whether you’re looking for interns, students, or employees, the best recruiters implement the convenience and speed of SMS in conjunction with their email and social media marketing strategies. You should too.
Here are some helpful tips to optimize your next mobile outreach plan to find the most qualified candidates.
1. Shameless self-promotion is always annoying
Since you don’t want to get on your contacts’ nerves, you need to keep in mind that spamming candidates is one of the quickest ways to turn them off. So, to avoid sending your SMS messages to those who don’t want them, ensure that your users opt-in to receive messages from you. You can use a subscription form to do this with ease.
That way, you can target your strategy toward those who are already willing to receive the proposals or job vacancy postings from you. By directing to your target audience, you will be sending text messages to potential candidates in no time.
2. Ensure that your campaigns are targeted and personal
With the use of modern tools such as segmented contact lists, you will have everything you need to direct your efforts exactly where they’re intended, rather than just sending the same generic messages to everyone. Using current text messaging services, you can upload contacts from a CSV or Excel file and delete duplicates in one easy step. Then, you can segment your lists by profession and company relationship.
For more complicated contact lists and recruiting campaigns, it is also a good idea to use a trusted CRM platform. This will help you track the performance of all types marketing every step of the way. CRM technology can help make any sales or recruiting process easier than the manual techniques of the past.
3. Text message automation technology will be your saviour
If it’s the ease you’re looking for in implementing your next recruiting campaign (and it should be!), take advantage of SMS automation technology.
Without automation, mobile recruiting can take up weeks of your time. Some things aren’t meant to be done manually. Expert recruiters will tell you to automate as much of the work as you can. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should forget about the personalization. You text to people, not items or candidate registration numbers on your contact list.
Another great advantage of text messaging software is that you can receive instant feedback from your candidates.
By utilizing tools that will do the heavy lifting for you, you free up valuable time to implement other aspects of your outreach. Your energy is better spent coming up with creative ideas.
4. Brainstorm with other recruiting professionals
One of the biggest mistakes that professional recruiters make is not networking with other recruiters. If you’re the only one in your team, relying on the input of the guys in the design or marketing departments, you are missing out on an entire dimension of educated input. It will serve you to know what works and what doesn’t, when it comes to recruiting, specifically SMS recruiting.
There is no need to go out and join a professional recruiters club, though you certainly can, if one exists in your area. Fortunately, you can find easy access to virtual groups on Facebook and LinkedIn that can be just as valuable to your efforts:
Facebook Groups for Professional Recruiters
- Recruiters Who Actually make Placements. Over 1,000 members. “Recruiters who actually make placements have a lot of interesting things to talk about: clients, tools, vacation spots, music, cocktails, etc.”
- Recruiters Online. About 5,500 members. “This is NOT a place to advertise your company or post your jobs. It is not a group for Job Hunters. This is a hardball discussion group about recruiting.”
- Recruiting Gym for Women. More than 11,000 members. This group is directed more toward direct sales businesses than traditional companies. “Welcome to the “Recruiting Gym for Women” – where you get on-going encouragement, support and training to help you build a large team… (without having to feel uncomfortable, sales-y or deal with a lot of rejection).”
LinkedIn Groups for Professional Recruiters
- Financial Executive Way Forward – Leaders in Banking, Consulting, Banking, and Recruiting. Nearly 130,000 members. “This group brings together professionals in the financial industries or related services. Senior managers are welcome to join from all over the world.”
- Hospitality Recruiting Network. Over 50,000 members. “This is a group designed to keep all recruiting professionals up to date and informed with the latest trends and happenings associated in the restaurant and hospitality recruiting industry. Recruiters from both corporate and agency are invited to attend and share valuable information.”
- Networked Recruiter. Almost 100,000 members. “The Networked Recruiter is a destination dedicated to expanding your professional network, facilitating career advancement, and promoting the collective sharing of best practices within the field of professional recruiting.”
5. Candidates should be able to easily unsubscribe
Just as it is important for potential candidates to be able to opt-in to receive text messages from you, it is equally important for them to be able to easily unsubscribe and stop receiving them. Do not fret; every list has people who unsubscribe. A good mobile marketing platform should allow you to implement a “STOP” feature. By utilizing the automated unsubscribe feature you are being polite, only targeting real candidates, complying with anti-spam guidelines, and offering extra value with your text messages.
As a recruiter, you can set up the platform to notify you of new unsubscribes via email if you like, and choose to manually remove subscribers from your list on your own. You should have complete control to decide.
Give your users easy access to opt-in and unsubscribe from your text messages. Segment and target your campaigns to appeal to a relevant audience. Network with other recruiters to stay in the know. Automate the parts of the recruiting campaign you can to free up time and energy for other things. Implementing this advice, you should see a world of improvement in your mobile campaigns.
Author
Di Doherty
Di has been a writer for more than half her life. Most of her writing so far has been fiction, and she’s gotten short stories published in online magazines Kzine and Silver Blade, as well as a flash fiction piece in the Bookends review. Di graduated from Mary Baldwin College (now University) with a degree in Psychology and Sociology.
