There is no doubt that mobile phones are now the primary communication device for many people — in fact, Deloitte found that 53 percent of people in the U.K. with smartphones check them within five minutes of waking up in the morning! A similar study in the U.S. from Deloitte found that 97 percent of 18-to 24-year-olds check their phones within three hours of waking up.
In theory the dominance of mobile connectivity should make it easier for recruiters to reach candidates, but that's not really the case.
A trend is developing in which candidates choose to take less phone calls, especially if they don't know the caller: the same U.K. Deloitte study found that 25 percent of smartphone users now make no traditional voice calls in any given week. This can be a problem for recruiting teams needing to contact candidates and get a prompt response regarding potential roles. Fortunately, there are other ways your team can use smartphone functionality to get around this trend.
Instead of thinking about the usual contact methods — voice, email and SMS — consider other platforms that are regularly used by hundreds of millions of people each day: apps. Messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, iMessage, WhatsApp, WeChat, BBM, Line and Skype, as well as social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), are all smart and popular alternatives for mobile communication with candidates.
All of these apps and platforms produce notifications that appear on the lock screen of a smartphone, meaning that recipients will see it the next time they pick up their phone. And if the message is compelling enough, all people have to do is swipe their phone and easily reply.
According to Statista, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are two of the most widely used messaging platforms. They are both easy to use and can be accessed from a desktop in addition to a mobile phone — which allows recruiters to easily copy and paste the conversations into the ATS for recording. The threaded nature of the messages make them easy to return to and immediately pick up the conversation, even if communication points are months apart.
You can text, send images and files easily via these types of platforms and the recipient can see your profile first before deciding if he or she wants to respond.
If you still primarily rely on emails for recruiting in your company, then it is worth noting that 73 percent of emails are opened on a smartphone. With potential candidates reading email on-the-go (and on a smaller screen), you may want to consider changing your approach to writing future emails.
Did you know, for example, that an email that appears in the inbox stream on an iPhone will only show 35 characters of the subject line and 90 characters of the message preview? You need to make sure your subject line and introduction presents a strong enough reason for the recipient to open the email, and then respond. Different phones and operating systems have different limits, but the end result is the same — less is more when it comes to emails in the future.
Technology and mobile platforms are constantly evolving. By embracing mobile with an apps-first mindset, you and your recruitment team will gain a competitive advantage when it comes to connecting with top talent.
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