by Ben Hess, Managing Director, ThirdPool Recruiting
Earlier this week, I highlighted some of the benefits of adding texting to your recruiting process.
Some Insight readers sent back questions worth addressing.
Is it legal to cold text (without permission) recruiting prospects? This is a grey area. Most of the laws that restrict texting for business purposes are related to solicitation (selling something).
Recruiting columnist Tim Sackett wrote a good article on this topic if you want to learn more on the legalities of recruitment texting.
Is it a good idea to cold text recruiting prospects? It depends. At ThirdPool, we require all recruiting prospects to opt-in if they want to receive text messages and over 90% give us permission to text.
If recruiting prospects expect to hear from you and are interested in what you have to say, the texting conversation usually goes well. Our general rule is to get permission before texting.
Exceptions to this rule could be activities such as following-up on a referral, connecting with someone in your professional network, or reaching out to someone you recently met.
Is spam texting acceptable? Spam texting (sending a single text to a large number of recipients you don’t really know) is a bad idea. It’s disrespectful, doesn’t work, and will cause a bunch of people to hate you.
What’s the goal of a text conversation with a recruiting prospect? It’s best to keep text messages short, to the point, and focused on a simple call to action such as a follow-on phone conversation or an appointment.
Here’s a general rule of thumb: If your text makes a prospect feel like they’re being spammed, it’s not OK.
