{"id":62700,"date":"2019-09-30T15:55:56","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T14:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bullhorn.com\/uk\/?p=62700"},"modified":"2019-11-12T15:31:41","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T15:31:41","slug":"can-you-text-it-to-me-how-to-define-the-roi-of-candidate-texting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bullhorn.com\/uk\/blog\/can-you-text-it-to-me-how-to-define-the-roi-of-candidate-texting\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Text it to me? How to Define the ROI of Candidate Texting"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Sense<\/a> was thrilled to partner with <\/span>Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA<\/span><\/a>) and some of our most trusted customers and partners on their most successful webinar to date. It\u2019s no secret that all of us in the recruitment industry are always looking for new ways to engage with the ever-evolving pool of candidates and contractors in the workforce. In today\u2019s mobile-first society, texting has been a white-hot topic that we\u2019ve decided to tackle head-on.<\/span><\/p>\n

But don\u2019t take it from us. We went right to the source, bringing in some of the best minds and practitioners in the business: Kip Wright, President and CEO, Genuent; Scott Gordon, Vice President of Talent Solutions & Partner, Vaco; Gina Chisholm, Vice President – Marketing and Technology, KellyMitchell; and April Starlight, MSP Program Director, Avalon Staffing: IT Avalon & Avalon Healthcare Staffing; for a jam-packed session full of data-driven insights, best practices, and tips and tricks to help drive your texting strategy into the now. Didn\u2019t get a chance to see the recording? <\/span>Check it out here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ROI of Texting<\/b><\/h3>\n

We covered how to implement texting into your strategy, but what comes after implementation? How do you measure ROI? Just how good is any strategy if you can\u2019t show the impact to your placements, your productivity, or your bottom line?<\/span><\/p>\n

With mobile engagement rates through the roof, text messaging is a must-have channel for recruiters. However, many agencies <\/span>still<\/span><\/i> don\u2019t have a text messaging strategy and individual recruiters are still somehow left to devise their own. As a result, recruitment leaders have no idea how to track these touchpoints or measure their impact.<\/span><\/p>\n

The mobile-first revolution is happening, whether your business is ready for it or not. Here are a few things to think about when it comes to proving the ROI of texting as a recruiting channel for your business.<\/span><\/p>\n

Real-time engagement saves your recruiters time<\/b><\/h3>\n

Why would your recruiters want to text a candidate rather than sending an email or giving them a call? <\/span><\/p>\n

Because either it is more intuitive for your recruiting team, your candidates, or both. Mobile engagement rates for candidates are on the rise because people are on their phones already, so sending a text or responding is quite frankly, easy. <\/span><\/p>\n

What happens when you make something that was once difficult much easier? Well let\u2019s look at the numbers:<\/span><\/p>\n

Cost-per-hire =<\/i>External Costs + Internal Costs<\/i>Total # of Hires<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

External costs refer to vendors, technology, or out-of-office costs while internal costs refer to internal people costs. Internal costs increase when it takes more of a recruiter\u2019s time to find a candidate and manage their recruiting process. Time is money.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shortening time-to-hire, the time it takes from the first touch to the first day on the job, reduces cost-per-hire. Candidates take, on average, 1.5 days to respond to recruiter emails. With text messaging, the average response time is 90 seconds, making it exponentially<\/span> faster to text candidates. Faster communication has a direct impact on hiring velocity. If every candidate\u2019s recruitment cycle is shortened by say 30 per cent, that means your cost-per-hire will be cut by almost 30 per cent as recruiter time is likely your biggest internal cost. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Operationally, texting candidates saves your recruiters time as well. <\/span>If a note is short<\/span><\/a>, it is quicker for your recruiters to send a text rather than write out an email. This process gets even easier if you give them the right platform, like Sense Messaging, with the right features. Switching between Bullhorn and a texting tool to manually type messages is time-consuming and requires a lot of mental overhead. Staffing text messaging software that\u2019s embedded right into your recruiter\u2019s workstreams, like Sense Messaging, gives your team the ability to \u201cclick-to-text\u201d right from numbers in Bullhorn and use <\/span>texting templates for faster, more consistent messaging. <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Better technology, faster response times and better reply rates cut down recruiting time by as much as 30 per cent. The end result? You’ll drastically improve your margins.<\/span><\/p>\n

Increased reply rates for hard-to-reach talent unlocks growth<\/b><\/h3>\n

In certain industries, lightweight mobile communication is an absolute necessity. Take healthcare as an example. Nurses, doctors, PAs\u2014these busy professionals are rarely in front of a computer or at a desk. But checking a text and shooting a response only takes a few seconds. Candidates often prioritise companies that make the recruiting process easier, and in such a tight labour market you want to be at the top of their list. <\/span><\/p>\n

Another key talent pool that prefers texting? Employed contractors. People already on similar assignments are proven quality candidates, but sending emails or calling them at work makes it difficult for them to engage. Because of how easy it is to read and return a text, recruiters can more easily stay in touch with these workers, especially near the end of their contract. That means your <\/span>redeployment rates will skyrocket<\/span><\/a>, in addition to contractor loyalty. <\/span><\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019re not hiring in a scarce talent pool, the talent of tomorrow universally wants mobile. Millennials and Gen-Z spend more time on their mobile phones than any other generation. They spend more time on them (two + hours per day) than any other age group, according to a recent Experian report. And they are starting to enter and taking over the workforce. If you aren\u2019t thinking about texting candidates now, in a few years, you will be behind when it comes to <\/span>candidate engagement<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go back to our cost-per-hire equation: Cost-per-hire =<\/span>External Costs + Internal Costs<\/span>Total # of Hires<\/span><\/p>\n

With more candidates responding, your recruiters can fill roles faster and your agency can take on more rec volume. Say you filled 10 recs for travel nurses at a five per cent reply rate if your reply rate increases to 51 per cent (the Sense Messaging average) then you’ll have roughly 10 times the number of candidates that you could place. That means you have the option to decrease your needed resources or you can increase the number of placements you can make, driving up revenue. And <\/span>10 times the number of qualified candidates means you’ll get 10 times the amount of potential revenue. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Texting insights will help you better manage your agency\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n

Text messages clearly impact the candidate experience, but you need data to understand the full picture. When selecting a texting tool, you need it to talk to Bullhorn. Not only does your texting platform need to leverage Bullhorn to drive recruiter productivity, but it needs to <\/span>capture every text conversation back to Bullhorn<\/span><\/a> so you can track the full candidate experience.<\/span><\/p>\n