Who likes to text more, men or women?
What’s your gut reaction? My initial reaction was it’s probably the same, right? Then I was thinking about my wife and the amount of text messaging she does with her friends, her sister, her mom, her children, okay, its women for sure! Also, if there is ever a real phone call that needs to be made, she will text me to make that call! Like somehow my “superpower” is picking up the phone and speaking to a real person on the other end.
“Dear, it’s just ordering pizza, you can do it!” Fine, I’ll just go online and order it there!
There is actually data to support this:
Statista.com
I’m not sure men would prefer to talk over text, but they definitely are more willing to talk over the phone, on average, than women.
How can we use this nugget of information in landing more female candidates? Obviously, increase the utilization of text messaging outreach when you want to increase the number of female candidates you want to get into your pipeline!
As you are putting together your recruitment communications plan for a requisition where you know you want to gather more female candidates, text messaging should be a primary source of outreach. That doesn’t mean you want also to use email and phone calls, but your primary communication strategy should be focused on text messaging.
What do female candidates like to hear your outreach messages? Most likely that you have their dream job, but here are some other popular highly engaged forms of text messages females tend to respond more to:
- Items around important events.
- Sharing something about yourself.
- Another way to say, “I’m thinking of you”.
- Direct response to something public.
- A meaningful memory.
- A good morning text.
Now, the trick is how do we use this information in a job outreach candidate interaction exchange!?
The first thing you have to ask yourself is, “why would this person reply to this text message?” Your message that says, “Hi, we have an opening for Business Analyst, click the link to see more…” Is not the correct answer to this question! That’s spam, no one likes spam.
How about something like, “Happy Holidays! I’m getting ready to fly home to see my parents in a few days but wanted to send you this in hopes you would get a chance to review it on your time off as well. Please let me know if you have questions. Would love to discuss this with you!”
I can guarantee you, you have a way better chance of that candidate clicking through and viewing your job at the very least. Plus, you are actually setting yourself up for outreach number two which could be, “I hope your holidays were awesome! I had some flightmares, but great to see the family. Did you get a chance to take a look at what I sent? Any interest or questions?”
You are adding numbers 1, 2, and 5 from the list above in two messages!
Adding “personalization” doesn’t always mean you need to share actual personal information. It’s the perception of personalization that also matters. In these text messages, you sound like a real person who cares and you’re beginning to build trust. All are important in getting a high level of response, especially from female targets.
Want more female candidates? Use text messaging, get personal, and build trust.
Want to learn more about how your organization can utilize text recruiting to its fullest? Check out Emissary.ai today!