Text Recruiting Discussion

Last week I hosted Madeline Laurano from Aptitude Research as we brought her new text recruiting research report to life on Zoom.

It was a terrific discussion with some comments from the attendees as well on texting use cases, do’s and dont’s and more. Below is a full transcript of that discussion so you can follow along.

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Text Recruiting Transcript

All right. Let’s do this. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of RecTech Live. I’m your host, Chris Russell, Managing Director of RecTech Media, where we cover all the world of recruiting technology.

Today, we’re talking about text recruiting. As companies look to improve communications, text recruiting is becoming a strategic priority for them. In fact, 40% of companies have increased their use of text in talent acquisition this year, according to new research conducted by Aptitude Research, in conjunction with Emissary.ai, the text recruiting platform entitled, The Rise of Text Recruiting and the Business Impact. The report states that although text is widely adopted in other areas of business, talent acquisition has been slow to respond. Email is still their preferred method of communication, and 58% of candidates received no response at all when they are screened out of the process.

You can download the report for free with no email required, over on the link there on the chat, on the Emissary website. Or you can click on the blog at Emissary.ai, to get it. And definitely hit them up for a demo while you’re there, as well, if you want to learn more about text screening solutions.

Here to discuss the report is author Madeline Laurano. She’s the Founder and Chief Analyst at Aptitude Research. Good afternoon, Madeline.

Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me on the show. I think this is my second time her, so, I appreciate you having me back.

Absolutely. Looking forward to it today. We had to reschedule from last week, of course. Sorry about that, audience. So a great topic today, and if the audience has questions as well, feel free to throw them in the chat there as we go along. I’m going to have the report up here on the screen, and we’ll scroll through it as I go through my questions with Madeline. We’ve got a few more people in the room, David Bernstein.

Awesome.

It amazes me that most companies have yet to adopt texting into their recruiting process. There’s still just a huge swath of companies out there, Madeline, that have yet to actually tackle this technology. But can you kind of just summarize the report in a few words here for us as we get started?

Sure. So it’s amazing to me too, Chris. We look at our consumer lives, we look at our personal lives, and we use text all the time. It’s just part of how we engage with companies and brands. It’s part of how we communicate, and we’re not seeing it widely adopted in talent acquisition, at least not in a way that’s compliant and safe and really engaging with candidates.

So to me, when I looked at this study and we first started talking about what this was going to look like from a research perspective, started to really dive into the communication crisis right now in talent acquisition. To me, a lot of the issues with candidate experience come down to communication. I think it’s a communication challenge. I think we’re not communicating with candidates in a way that’s immediate, in a way that’s personal, and in a way that’s meaningful, and we’re seeing that really impact every single area of talent acquisition.

And what we found in the research when we looked at this communication crisis, is that companies rely so heavily on email. This is the go-to, this is how ATSs support communication. This is what companies use. There’s classes and training out there on how to create an email. We’ve all seen this. We’ve all gone through this on how to just create these email templates. And this is the go-to form of communication.

What we found in the research is 43% of candidates don’t even open their emails.

And we know when we look at the hourly workforce, which is the forgotten workforce, a lot of these candidates don’t even have access to email. So we’re seeing, especially through the pandemic, this increase in the use of mobile devices and individuals owning mobile devices and communicating through mobile devices. We need to be able to communicate with candidates where they live and where they spend their time. So the report, to summarize, I know that was a long answer, really looks at the communication crisis today, and then the impact of text in being able to improve that candidate experience and the recruiter experience as well.

Yeah. Email becomes kind of a crutch, I think for, for companies. It’s sort of the default, just send an email if it’s so easy, I guess. But what do you think is preventing them from adopting things like text recruiting in their communications and talking to candidates and applicants and all that kind of stuff?

I think one of the reasons is it becomes a behavior. The behavior is just to use email, and a lot of system support email, and that’s been the go to for a lot of recruiters and a lot of hiring managers and companies. So I think that’s one reason that we’re seeing this.

I think the other is companies don’t exactly know that they have these options. And what we found in the research too, is a lot of recruiters are using text, but they’re using it in, I would say, inappropriate, and I don’t mean it probably as that’s going to come across, but if they’re using just kind of rogue texting to say, “All right. Somebody put their number on LinkedIn in their profile, or I found their number on their resume. I’m just going to send them a text and see if they want to jump on the phone with me.”

And it sounds really easy, and this is happening all the time. And we know this is happening. I’ve been contacted by recruiters through text, but it’s not compliant. It introduces bias, because we don’t know the language being used. It’s not integrated into the ATS, so we’re not able to track the effectiveness of this type of communication. And it’s just out there. So I think a lot of companies don’t even know that the recruiters are actually doing this in a very rogue way, and it puts them at risk.

If we think about it, on the consumer side, imagine going into a store and you buy something, or you go and you have a meal in a restaurant and you leave the restaurant. And imagine that the waiter sends you a text, “Hey Chris, thanks for my tip. Can I get another 10 bucks?” Or, “Thanks so much for coming. I hope you liked the steak. Next time I would try the scallops.” That would never happen. It would be so inappropriate. The text comes through a system, it comes through a platform that says, “How was your meal? Can you give us a rating? How was your meal? Would you like to come back? What can we do better?” It’s engaging, it’s professional, it’s compliant. And we need to think about doing the same thing in talent acquisition.

Definitely. Was there an aha moment in this report for you, in terms of some of the numbers that you uncovered here?

Yeah. I think there were a few. I think for one, I didn’t realize how many recruiters are just using text without having a platform or a way to really measure that effectiveness. That was surprising. And then, I think the other piece, and it’s just been a theme for me this year, is the impact on the recruiter experience. We’ve talked so much about candidate experience. That’s definitely been a big focus for my research in the past few years.

But this year, the recruiter experience really came to light. We really started to see that recruiters are leaving, companies are struggling to find recruiters. Recruiters are burnt out. We need to think about technology that supports recruiters, not just technology that IT wants to buy or that VPs of HR want to buy. What does really work for people that are doing the work?

And so, looking at this report and this research through the lens of the recruiter experience, it was like, “Okay, text is not just for candidates. It’s just as much of a benefit for recruiters and recruiting teams, too that do not have time to engage with candidates one-on-one that still want to create meaningful experiences and just want to do it in a more immediate way.”

Yeah. Yeah. David Bernstein in the chat there agrees, he says “Lack of communication is the number one reason why candidates complain about their experience.” I see Kevin Grossman over at the Talent Board talks a lot about the key to providing a great kin experience is the ability to provide frequent and respectful feedback through the entire life cycle. That’s something that’s definitely lacking out there.

A hundred percent.

That feedback over there.

Yeah. Hi, David. I think that’s a great comment. And I know Kevin and the Talent Board, they create these pillars of what is a great candidate experience? And feedback and communication are two of those pillars. And they’re both impacted by this conversation today.

Yeah. I wonder if there’s a company out there that’s kind of like a text first company in terms of just all the communications with their employees and their candidates out there. There must be some small company out there that does everything by text. I’d love to talk to them about that. But if anybody knows in the chat there, there’s got to be a company that does a lot of this well.

One thing too, Chris, I think what happens, to that point, is a lot of companies are great with improving communication, whether that’s text or conversational AI or messaging, they’re great at one part of talent acquisition, like we’ve figured out how to improve the interview scheduling, because we’re going to do that through text or we’re going to improve the apply process and answer questions through a different form of communication. But to do it end-to-end, I think that’s surprising to me as well when we looked at the research. It’s like this impacts every single part of that candidate journey.

Yep. All right. So how many companies did you talk to you for this report?

I think we had over 400 companies that responded to the survey, and then we do quite a bit of interviews, oh, a little bit over 300. And then we do quite a bit of interviews to support that as well, so that happens throughout the year. And communication has just been a big, big topic of a lot of the round tables in the interviews that we do.

Yeah. Let’s go through some of the numbers here. Four times more likely to see candidates respond in the first two minutes. That’s, I think, very true. I was talking to one of Emissary’s clients the other day, we’re doing a case study with them and I asked the guy, “What did candidates tell you about this?” And he said, “It’s just their reaction.” He says, “I’ll message a candidate as soon as they apply and they reply back, ‘Oh, wow. That was quick.'” And to me, that’s awesome. Right. That’s what the candidates want. And we need to have more of that happen throughout TA in that kind of speed, I think. But two times more likely to fill positions in the first two weeks and 48% in the overall permanent candidate experience, so very cool.

Now, well walk me through the top findings here, because these are pretty interesting, I think.

Yeah. So, the first I think is what we started talking about, which is email is not enough, and that’s been the go-to for a lot of companies. You can see here, 43% of candidates aren’t even opening those emails, and that’s not just true for talent acquisition, that’s true for the employee experience, too. So looking at how does this impact not just how we’re recruiting, but can we continue this type of communication through the employee experience? But we rely so heavily on email and just again, going back to this idea of high volume or hourly workforce or the forgotten workforce, a lot of these individuals don’t even have email addresses or they’re not checking them frequently. And why are we not going to where candidates spend their time and communicating with them there? So I think just kind of getting out of this behavior of email is definitely been a big theme in the research report.

Text is important across all areas of talent acquisition.

Again, I think we just think of it in one situation, like this could improve apply, this could improve scheduling, maybe this improves onboarding. But there are use cases throughout all of talent acquisition, and we really have to think about providing that consistency throughout. And then, I think this idea of ROI, this is a theme just in TA tech in general. Companies aren’t measuring ROI, and a lot of companies, I think, find it challenging to measure ROI. When you look at communication and again, whether that’s text, conversational AI, messaging, whatever it may be, this ROI conversation, it becomes much more critical because you’re seeing an immediate ROI. You’re seeing candidates respond. Within two days, you’re seeing candidates being able to maybe accept a job within two days. We’re seeing improvements in efficiency. We’re seeing improvements in that experience. We’re seeing improvements in recruiter productivity.

So the ROI, it’s almost immediate. I hate to kind of say it so definitively, like this is an immediate ROI, but it really is. When you improve communication, you see the impact across all of these areas of talent acquisition. And we talked about speed and the response time, the metrics change within talent acquisition, too. We’re not just looking at time to fill or quality of hire or a lot of these traditional metrics. We start to look at metrics that are more marketing metrics, like what is response time? What is communication? And what are these metrics that we can start tracking to be able to really gauge candidate engagement?

And the recruiter experience, too, right? They sure love using text. Do we have any recruiters in the audience who want to give texting some props here? Feel free to chime in. And yeah, the mobile only mindset. I think even job alerts should be text now. Forget email if you’re a company and you’re any kind of talent community, you should be texting those jobs to the candidates if you want more applies, right?

Right. And even think about again, going back to the consumer experience, even companies that are sending you emails all the time, you’re still getting texts, too, or you have an option to receive text messages. And that’s just how we communicate. I get text messages all the time. They’re like, “I sent you an email, but I’m sending you a text too, because I know this is faster and sometimes easier for people.” And it definitely is for me, so it’s appreciated.

Yeah. I think candidates want it, too.

Yeah.

They expect it almost at this point. Jonathan Doraday says, “We use the term first contact to offer our clients moving from seven days to two days with text plus automation.” Yep. “You can’t do job alerts over text,” he says. “It’ll get banned to spam.” Really? I would think as long as it’s opt in, why can’t you do that, Jonathan? I’m curious there. All right. So other findings here, two week communications at scale is a reality through text. Now, all text is the same. What do you mean by that one?

So I think that’s kind of going back to the point that a lot of recruiters will just text a candidate if they see their number on a resume or they see their number in a LinkedIn profile or wherever it may be, and just reach out and say, “Would love to schedule some time, would love to connect you with this hiring manager,” whatever it may be. And that’s not the same as using a text-based platform that’s compliant, that’s reducing bias, that’s thinking about this experience, that’s integrated with your ATS or able to manage and measure the effectiveness.

And again, I think just going back to that kind of consumer example, we would never expect that as consumers, to get these random text messages from the person you just met in a store that you wanted to buy a t-shirt in. But we’re seeing recruiters do the same thing. So I think thinking through it as a compliant platform. And bias is a big part of that conversation too, because companies are spending so much money on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We have to think about reducing bias in the hiring experience. We know bias is everywhere in talent acquisition today, and we can’t just risk having either managers or recruiters sending out text messages without really ensuring that they’re communicating in a way that is really thinking about bias, too.

Yeah. Syed has a good comment in the chat there. He says, “We talk about texting like a bullhorn.” So yeah. Good point there. I’ll say you can’t overdo texting, because it is so personal and immediate. You have to do it… There’s a right mix of cadence there. Anything around that, Madeline, that you want to talk about?

Yeah. And I think that that does happen. I think we’ve all probably experienced that, where you have to really figure out what the right level of engagement is and what’s going to be most effective, and not just do a lot of the same patterns that we do on email through text as well. That’s a great point.

Yep. All right, here. So the communication crisis. When asked to select top three priorities for 2022, companies identified improving efficiency, finding candidates faster, and finding more candidates. Speed is a currency for success in talent acquisition. Amen. So the numbers here, improving all of our efficiency, you can see where the needs are. I thought this was interesting here, which was the daily recruiter activities. So what do they spend their time doing most? Do you want to read some of those for us?

Yeah. If you talk to recruiters, and having a lot of friends that are recruiters, we know why people love being recruiters, is because they love connecting with candidates and they love building these relationships. I have a good friend who is a campus recruiter, and she loves seeing someone get their first job and working with early talent and building those relationships, and kind of being that point of contact and that first relationship with someone before they join an organization.

Recruiters aren’t recruiters because they love searching in an ATS or because they love reviewing applicants. So I think one piece of it is, a lot of this work is administrative. And the other piece of it that comes through in this data to me is recruiters are not able to focus on really connecting with candidates, that communication gets lost when you’re spending all of your time just searching for candidates or worrying about advertising or trying to be able to schedule interviews, which is a lot of time, and a huge time commitment. So again, I think this idea of text is not just being something for candidates, but for recruiters too, really changes the whole idea of what are we doing and how are we reaching candidates?

Yeah. So if we look at the graph here, top three things, reviewing applicants, number one, finding applicants, number two, scheduling interviews, number three. I would think technology is shifting those numbers, because technology can bring in a flood of applicants, you have to go through them essentially, as a recruiter there, unless you have some kind of automated evaluation process there.

Yeah. And I think matching solutions help that, too. And there’s a lot of technology, a lot of automation that can help reduce a lot of these tasks. I think what’s interesting is a lot of the solutions are so complex that recruiters either are not able to use them in a way that’s really bringing any value to them, or they have to go through so much training, or companies are just switching them constantly, so it becomes really challenging to I think really see a high adoption in a lot of these TA tech solutions.

Yeah. That’s a good point. Your TA tech solution has to be dead simple easy if you want to gain adoption with it. And the more complex it is, the less use it gets, essentially. So that’s the way of the world. Here’s some more numbers, communication often takes a backseat to these administrative tasks and responsibilities. The result is that candidates are ignored. Four times more likely to see… 56% of applicants that are screened out never receive a response. That’s a huge fail, and a part of the black hole out there. 74% of companies were not effectively engaging candidates in a remote environment. And 62% of hourly workers never receive a response. Wow, that’s crazy.

Crazy. Especially because of everything that happened in the past two years, where during the pandemic, the hourly workforce is the workforce that made sure that we were getting food and really could sustain our lives during this time. And then, we’re not even treating them with respect enough to give a response during that period. So I think this, not to kind turn this into an hourly conversation, but to really think about what’s happened with the hourly workforce and how that needs to change, communication is the foundation of that. We have to be able to communicate with hourly workers in a way that’s simple, where they’re living and where they’re spending their time. And text is a big part of that.

Yeah. I want to read some of the chat stuff here. It says, Jonathan Norte, “Best practices. ‘Hi, first name, my name is, recruiter name from company name.’ If you don’t do this, the engagement rates are subpar,” he says. And Dominic says, “Agreed. We’ve talked with candidates a lot as well. And one-way messages with links are frowned upon. Also, always ending with the question is a great way to get good engagement rates.” They make some pretty good points there. If you’re just sending a link, what’s the point, right?

Right. Right.

You can do that with an email. It’s got to be something different, more personal, I think.

Yeah, definitely. I think that this idea of personalized experiences, this is where most companies need to go. And when you look at even the email training that I think a lot of companies have gone through, or recruiters have gone through, it’s to create more personalized emails. And to do that at scale, we have to kind of take some of that and put that into text too, just texting out a link or encouraging them to apply for a job without even providing any type of humanity just doesn’t go very far.

So obviously, email is still king, but how do you see other tools like WhatsApp, WeChat, Slack, entering the recruiting process. Madeline, give us some thoughts around that if you could.

Yeah. A lot of the ATSs are trying to figure out now how can we create better communication channels?

And it’s not just email, and a lot of them are trying WhatsApp, and messaging is part of a lot of ATSs now, WeChat not as much, because they’re harder to integrate with. But Teams is obviously, there’s a few ATSs out there where Teams has been a big focus or Slack. So I think we’re starting to see more options, but it’s still, again, the go-to still is email. So the more that we can provide these options, the more we can think about where candidates are spending their time and how do we engage with them on those platforms, the more successful that experience will be.

Yeah. Sayed, you had a question?

Yeah. You know what? You start addressing it, which I think is really key, because the whole idea of texting is such a great communication tool because it’s very direct and it can be very personalized. But one of the problems that everybody that I talk to when I talk about texting, they talk about it as another top of funnel feeder. And to me, that basically perpetuates this problem of intermediation between the job seeker and the employer. So, texting should be a way to streamline the communication, to make it easier for an employer to engage. And that’s something that I think whoever does it best will start winning the quality war or the quality battle for great candidates, because as a replacement or as a top of funnel thing, I think it becomes another thing we have to come up with a cure for.

Or another option that a candidate has to find on their own or that a company has to find on their own. Yeah. I think that’s a great, great point. It has to be as easy as possible and it has to be almost a text first approach.

Well, I read your study, by the way. It’s fantastic.

Oh, thank you.

And thanks for putting it out there, Chris, really great work.

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks for joining.

All right. So as we look through the rest of the report here, again, email versus text, I think some of the obvious comparisons there are pretty obvious.

Yeah. And I think the more that we kind of bring awareness to email does not need to be the go-to approach that companies are using, I think the ATSs have some work to do as well to rethink that process.

Yeah. I’m looking for a text-first ATS to come out.

Right.

Just with texting as it’s kind of core component, done properly. I think there’s a market there for something like that overall. Anybody else disagree with that?

Yeah. There’s conversational AI-first ATSs, Paradox is certainly able to do that on the hourly side. It’s able to do on the professional side too, but a lot of hourly companies are using Paradox for an ATS. We could see similar for text, for sure.

So, yeah. Yeah. So about 40% of companies said they’re going to increase their use of texting this year.

Yep. They’re going to increase their use of text. And I think that will be again, the more we can educate them that the platform is a better option than kind of this just random texting, I think the more value companies will see.

Texting….

And I think the other piece too, is it’s so so familiar. There isn’t a lot of education to tell companies what text is or what the value is. Everybody understands what we text all the time in our personal lives. This is unlike a lot of different areas of talent acquisition. If we’re just going to use AI matching as an example, you really have to explain what this is. You have to help companies understand how AI is used.

Well, there’s an art to it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. There’s an art to it. As Jonathan said here, first name, “My name is X from company X,” and you have to keep things brief, of course. There’s a whole best practices guide over in Emissary.ai if you guys want to check it out as well. But yeah, there is a little bit of art to this as well. I’ve done some surveys of recruiters around how they actually use texting, like what are the phrases and words they use, which I think can be… Words matter, right? Whether it’s text or email, the way you sound, that tone, is important out there.

Right. It’s the method, and it’s the tone as well.

Benefits of text-to-screen platform, 52% improved efficiency, 42% increase in candidate engagement, 32% improved candidate engagement, and 30% improved recruiter experience overall.

That’s good ROI right there, for anybody who’s not using text recruiting yet. And the use cases for text-to-screen, run us through those there, if you could, on that one.

Yeah. And I think a lot of companies think it’s just like apply and scheduling.

A lot more, yeah.

But to see all of these different use cases where you can do one-on-one text, where you can think about recruitment marketing, referrals, I think is a great example of being able to use text. And referrals are so obvious that I think often overlooked from text, because companies have referral programs. We know this is the number one source of hire, yet to be able to text referral codes and make them personal to your employees and have them be able to share that via text, provides just much better adoption of these referral programs than if you’re not using text.

And then, I think beyond that, we really looked at the employee experience too, to say, “Okay, if talent acquisition is where a lot of companies are going to start to adopt text, can we look at this experience in other areas, whether that’s benefits administration, whether that’s performance management, whether that’s internal mobility, and to start to see the value throughout that entire experience.”

Yep. I get their recruitment marketing one in there, and that’s great for short code recruiting. Emissary has a client, they were doing something with truck drivers, and they had a short code called “truck, yeah,” was there short code. And so, if you texted that you would get back some information on the company. Screening at 10%, it’s kind of low, I think.

Yeah.

Texting is a great use case for that as well.

It’s a great use case for screening. Yeah. And I think especially during the pandemic, we started to see a lot of those examples kind of come up. But I think the other one too, that I call out, and I think it hits on all of these, is Campus as well. For companies that are going to either Campus events or they’re thinking about increasing their Campus recruiting programs, to be able to do all of this and reach early talent can be very valuable as well.

Yeah. Yeah. You see more companies using texting in their Campus recruit. I would think the QR code has made a comeback too, there. Right?

Yep. Yep. Yeah. I think there’s going to be… I think where Campus is at right now, is companies are trying to figure out what the mix is going to be of virtual versus in person. And I don’t think there’s a lot of answers yet about what that will look like for next year.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You can’t forget the employee experience, too, right? You can use texting inside of that arena. Just touch on that if you could.

Yeah. I think there’s lots of different examples throughout that employee experience. I did an interview, this is a few years ago, but it was with the State of Colorado. And I think they employee like 50,000 people. Just for benefits administration, they were sending out emails for open enrollment to try to get people to sign up. And it was very low, like under 20% were actually signing up for open enrollment by the date, yet everybody wanted benefits. That’s part of the benefit of working for the state, the great benefits. And people just were not reading their emails, they weren’t opening the emails. So they had to really switch their communication, and they relied heavily on text to be able to do that. And they saw that enrollment go from under 20% to over 90% just in a year. And that’s just changing that method of communication.

Yeah. What about onboarding too? That could be a good use case for onboarding, give welcome messages from the team and that kind of thing.

Yeah. And the bidirectional, I think when you use a platform, too, it’s not just one way. You can get this bidirectional communication, and to be able to think about that onboarding experience. I think for onboarding, there’s so many fears for new hires. It’s scary, especially for going back to an office for the first time in two years, I was just talking to someone about this. There’s so much fear with, what do you need to bring? What is this going to look like? And it doesn’t feel awesome to be able to send an email Sunday night before you start on Monday, and ask these questions, or you might not get a response, you don’t really know who to go to. But if there’s an option to text and to be able to find out information or get quick reminders, it can feel really great.

We even found in our research, this is pre-COVID, but the biggest fear for new hires was should I bring a lunch on the first day of work? And it sounds silly, but it’s really a real fear. Do I pack a lunch? Is someone going to take me to lunch? Is there lunch in the cafeteria? Is there a place to buy lunch? Do I need to leave the office building to find lunch? And lunch is expensive. So that, do I bring and pack a lunch is a fear that could easily be answered over text.

Well, I guess at the end of the day, texting, just do it, right? That’s what it comes down to. We need to get this into more hands in TA and help speed up that hiring process and the other things as well.

Absolutely.

Cool. Any other questions from the audience as we wrap things up here? Again, you can check out the report on Emisarry.ai. You can also go to aptituderesearch.com, perhaps, is that the URL?

Yep.

Okay.

I think so. I had to think about it.

Throw your URL in the chat there too, if you could. And yeah, it’s been a great conversation. I love talking texting. And any last questions out there from the audience? I’m going to put this.

Yeah. I have a quick question.

Hi, Chase.

Hey, my name’s Chase. I have seen text used really often for initial screening and knockout questions after a candidate applies. And especially in the hourly world, that’s working well to get more applications. Are you authorized to work? Yes or no? Makes it pretty easy on recruiters, but it’s less used in a personal one-to-one connection type of… It’s less used to develop intimacy and a sense of closeness with the recruiter like we’ve been talking about this whole session. And I’m wondering if you still feel, although it may be underutilized, if you still feel that there’s a lot of value in those pre-screening questions or maybe just some of that automated stuff for candidates that are applying to a job.

That’s a great question. Chris, I’m sure you have opinions on this too, but I think there is value, because a lot of companies are going to ask those questions and try to get those requirements anyway. And to be able to easily do that through text, it’s more efficient, candidates are going to have to do it anyway, and then sometimes they forget to do it, or it feels like another hassle to go back to that email or log into some system to do it. So I think it’s more efficient, so that’s the benefit.

I think the number one benefit I see, and I think companies are being creative, too on when they can include those. Maybe you can first create that meaningful relationship and say, “Hey, by the way, Chase, we need to also just get some of these questions out of the way. If you get a few minutes in the next day, if you can kind of send these back.” So I think the traditional way would be like, send those questions before we even provide any engagement, knock candidates out. And then do that. I think companies can be a little more creative now about when to do it. Some companies have even gotten rid of a lot of requirements, too.

Yeah. I think if you’re a high volume employer too, you’re going to leverage that piece you mentioned, Chase, this screening out part versus the personalized stuff more.

Sure.

Because you just don’t have that bandwidth to make those personal messages on a one-on-one basis at that point. But at the very least, the screening out is an excellent use case for them.

Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you.

Excellent. Good question. All right, guys, as I mentioned, I’m going to throw this on YouTube.

Chris, did you. And then, on that guys, that’s Barry Lynch from Emmissary.

Oh, hey, Barry.

Dovetailing what Madeline had said and Chase had said, one of the best case uses we’ve was for new employees starting in a retail environment. They would send an automated text out the day before the person was due to start to say, “Hey, here’s the store location you’re going to. Here’s the time you’re supposed to show up. You’ll meet the manager of your shift who is going to be this person at this time. Any questions, shoot us a text, and we’ll be able to get back to you straight away on it.” And just that anxiety, again, as Madeline mentioned, about starting a new position, it was eased.

One of the unexpected things about it was in the war for talent that’s happening in the hourly space and has been prevalent over the last little while is they were getting a lot of texts back going, “You know what? I’ve accepted another job.” Or “I’m not going to be able to make it tomorrow.” And that would clear the manager’s schedule to say, “Okay. I’m not waiting around here when I should be restocking the shelves or doing whatever the case may be, waiting for someone who’s not going to show up.” They would get more show ups and more people showing up. But also, “Okay, we need to start the recruitment process again, because this person we thought we had in the bag is not going to be with us.” So it had multifaceted benefits.

Ghosting prevention.

I love that. Yeah. I love that example, Barry, because that ghosting conversation is so real, and it’s a reality, especially in high volume.

And it’s scary to send… To know you’ve accepted another job, or you went back to somewhere else, you decided you are going to take some time off and not work, and to draft an email, most candidates are not going to do that. Or they’re not going to pick up the phone and call someone and tell them they’re not going to show up. To send a quick text and say, “I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to work. I’m not coming in.” It feels immediate. It feels like you’ve done it. It feels less scary. And then, it’s a relief for the manager to say, “I know that I can spend my time doing something different tomorrow versus just sit around waiting and getting frustrated all day long because someone’s not showing up.”

Yeah. Good stuff, Barry. Thanks for that. All right. It is 2:37. I think we can wrap up. What do you say? Good to see everybody again. Sayed, good to see you.

You, too.

Jonathan, thanks for the chats there. I’ll put it up on RecTech Media’s YouTube page, hopefully by the end of the day. And I’m also going to transcribe everything and post it on the Emissary blog next week, too, so stay tuned for that.

Thanks, Chris.

All right, everybody, well… Thanks Madeline for joining us, and check her out at aptituderesearch.com, Emissary.ai. We’ll see you next time. Thanks for watching.

Thanks, everyone.