For the past few weeks I have been “playing” with a new tool called TextRecruit and have fallen in love. I have been using texting as a way to contact candidates for sometime, and now I can do it better, faster, and keep track of what I am doing easier.  

TextRecruit was founded by Erik Kostelnik who was in leadership for Careerbuilder and Jed Damner a technology leader and was designed to be the first centralized texting platform built exclusively for the recruiting industry. With over 90% of all text messages being read within the first 3 minutes, and 86% of all job seekers using the mobile phone to job hunt, you can see how this capability can be very useful for staffing. It is estimated that over 60% of recruiters are texting candidates, but doing so using their personnel accounts, having to do it one at a time and having no real way to keep track all their activity. TextRecruit helps separate personnel and professional and allows for the company to have reports on performance of the texting being done. TextRecruit has a very user friendly desktop that allows you to know who you texted, who replied and more.  Now if any of you have ever read or attended one of my webinars on candidate contact campaigns, you will remember that I said to utilize SMS/Texting, well here is a tool that allows you to do that from the confines of your desktop or laptop, do it in mass, create campaigns, folders, and not only get results, but also get click through rates, success rates, stay txt compliant (meaning spam, and other legal issues with regards to txting) and more. They have several cost effective plans that should match the needs of anyone, this includes enterprise plans. With each plan you get a specific number of text credits. These text credits equate to a text message. However only the initial contact message counts against your credit, any follow on texts between you and a candidate do not count and are free. It gets better as they are developing a mobile app, for all 3 major mobile systems. OH and it integrates with most ATS/HRIS and CRM systems. When you get this tool you get a specific number of text credits, according to what plan you are on. Long story short, it’s a great tool to add to your arsenal, and they offer a 15 day free trial, so you can test drive it and fall in love like I did. For more info go to TextRecruit.