Learn Why Texting Works for Staffing Agencies and Recruiters + 17 Templates and Examples

Timely communication is crucial for recruitment and staffing, especially when jobs need to be filled.

But consider this: job candidates spend 28% of their day reading and responding to email.

This means you’re fighting for attention in an already overcrowded and time-sensitive inbox.

And if you’re only emailing, then all you can do is keep your fingers crossed and hope for a response. 🤞

So what more can you do when it comes to sending time-sensitive staffing and recruitment messages?

This is where business text messaging can help you reach and respond to hundreds of people at once.

In this post I’ll go over:

1. What business text messaging for staffing agencies and recruiters is
2. 5 reasons why text messaging works for staffing agencies and recruiters
3. How staffing agencies and recruiters can get started with business text messaging
4. 17 free staffing and recruitment text message templates (copy & paste)

By the end, you’ll know how to send hiring messages, texts for talent acquisition, staffing shortages, job placement, text-to-apply campaigns, and how to improve the candidate experience with texting.

Read on for more.

Staffing and recruitment are all about getting the right people into the right position at the right time.

But…

• What do you do when your message recipients aren’t always at a desk?
• What if your contacts don’t have direct access to email?
• What if they don’t return your call or listen to their voicemail?

This is where business texting has clear advantages. Texts have up to a 90% open rate and a near 45% response rate. Compare that to email with around a 20% open rate and 6% response rate.

Are email and voice calls dead when it comes to staffing and recruitment?

No.

Emails will always be the standard for longer, more formal communications. They’re easy to compose and you can send email blasts to hundreds of contacts.

But email isn’t necessarily great for getting quick responses and sending short, direct, messages.

And there will always be a need for phone calls. But phone calls aren’t scalable. You can’t easily automate or personalize calling when you need to quickly reach hundreds of people and get responses.

Need more proof? Here are five additional reasons why texting works.

5 Reasons why text messaging works for staffing agencies and recruiters:

1. Easy to start conversations and engage with people
2. More convenient and discreet
3. Reduces missed calls and limits voicemails
4. Easy to personalize relationships with candidates
5. Helps staffing agencies and recruiters fill positions faster

1. Text messaging makes it easy to start conversations and engage people

Email inboxes get flooded with hundreds of new messages every day from personal emails, newsletter subscriptions, and shopping receipts.

Not to mention, most people manage multiple email addresses: personal, work, and that one junk email address from forever ago.

But phone numbers? Most people only have 1 cell phone with one phone number.

This is where SMS can help you break through all the noise and start more text conversations.

Texting makes it easy to:

• Quickly confirm a candidate's interest
• Fill an open time slot
• Schedule a meeting or interview
• Send out an update with open job posts, positions, or shifts

Bonus: a click-to-text button on your website can help you start text conversations even faster.

2. Text messaging is more convenient and discreet

If a job candidate is already employed, they may not want to answer their phone or check personal email at their workplace. Especially if their computer is provided by their current employer.

This is where text-to-apply text recruiting campaigns can come in handy.

Text-to-apply and text-to-hire autoresponder keywords make it easy for potential candidates to quickly get more info and get logged into an applicant tracking system.

Once you have a list of quality candidates it’s easy to text them about new job opportunities, remind them of upcoming scheduled interviews and keep them updated during the application process.

This is also where text messaging works well for employee communication.

When phone calls or emails aren’t possible, text message recruiting and staffing is a faster way to get in touch.

It’s not just the recruitment and staffing industries that benefit from texting’s ease of use. Many job seekers and employees say they’d prefer to receive messages via text.

3. Text messaging reduces no-shows, and limits missed calls and voicemail

Ever call a candidate about a personal interview just to leave a voicemail that gets no response?

No one likes playing phone tag. It’s a waste of time and it leads to frustration for callers on both ends.

Text messaging helps with call management and reducing call volume. It eliminates missed calls and the “Sorry I missed you!” voicemails.

And voicemail itself is losing popularity, especially among millennials. They’re less likely to leave a voicemail, let alone listen to one.

In fact, 1 in 4 people won’t listen to voicemails from unknown callers. But texts from an unknown number are 7 times more likely to get a response than a voicemail.

If the voicemails you’re leaving candidates or employees are in regard to interviews or meetings, then consider text messaging to reduce your chances of no-shows.

4. Text messaging makes it easy to personalize relationships with candidates

Employees and job seekers all prefer conversational experiences. But 67% of people would rather text with a business than talk to them on the phone.

And business texting makes it easy to personalize and save custom text messages as templates.

This means it’s possible to create conversational experiences at scale with hundreds of contacts.

Here’s an example:
Let’s say you’re sending out a text message SMS for job interview reminders. There are a bunch of candidates and they’ve all got different interview time slots. Instead of typing and sending a single text message to each, you can customize one mass text message with personalization {{ tags }} and auto-insert each interviewee’s time slot.

Here’s what that looks like when sent as a mass text to all candidates using MessageDesk:

5. Texting helps staffing agencies and recruiters fill positions faster

Many employers find themselves periodically short-staffed or needing to fill open shifts or time slots. Timing and speed are always important and this is where text messaging can help.

Data shows that 43% of smartphone owners use their devices to look up information about a job. If you’re not using mass texts to reach job candidates or employees, then you’re missing out on a fast-action communication tool.

Mass texting is different from group texting. But for staffing and recruitment mass texting is similar to SMS marketing. In this scenario, you’re sending a one-way text blast to many phone numbers at once.

All it takes to send a text blast is organizing contacts and phone numbers into groups. Again, this is where mass text solutions for staffing agencies and recruiters make things easier.

Platforms like MessageDesk allow you to sort and filter contacts both manually and automatically based on contact information or even custom data fields.

Some staffing agencies and recruiters start texting from their personal phones or even Google voice. But there are drawbacks and liabilities associated with these.

• You can track or assign messages across team members with a personal phone.
• You have to text from a personal number that’s different from your business number.
• You can’t send mass texts from a personal phone.

So it's best to text from a dedicated business text messaging service.

Here’s how you can get started.

1. Choose a business text messaging provider

Your first step is to choose a recruitment or staffing text messaging solution.

There are many great business texting services out there, including MessageDesk. But you’ll want to find one that has the SMS tools that suit your team’s staffing and recruiting needs.

If you’re looking to get your whole team texting, then you’ll want a service with a shared team inbox.

2. Create a free account

The next step is to create a free account. You can do this with MessageDesk by starting a free trial or meeting with a messaging expert to discuss your specific messaging needs.

3. Text-enable a business phone or select a new text number

Next, you’ll need to get a text number for your business communications.

You've got a bunch of SMS phone number options. But to text from your existing business number or landline, you’ll need to submit a number porting request.

Here’s an example of what that looks like in MessageDesk:

I’ve covered why texting works for staffing and recruitment agencies and how to get started.

The following are recruitment message examples and text templates that cover the most common use cases recruiters and staffing agencies encounter.

Your call to action and message details will vary, but these are some of the best staffing and best recruiting messages I’ve seen MessageDesk users send. I've also got a list of 60+ business texting templates you can use here.

Note: I’ve formatted these message templates with brackets to work with MessageDesk’s personalization tag feature. This is a great way to customize messages and automatically personalize texts.

Job announcement

We are hiring text

Sample SMS for Job Interview availability

Job interview confirmation

Job interview reminder

Re-schedule interview

Job interview follow-up

Job offer (SMS format)

No job offered (SMS format)

Sample text message for hired applicants

Text message document request

Job fair follow-up

Job starting reminder

Assignment ending

Timecard reminder

Candidate referral

Online review request

Final thoughts and next steps

Ready to put these templates to work and send out your recruitment or short-staffed message?

Start using a dedicated business text messaging solution to solve all your staffing and recruiting needs.

For questions, you can always meet with a MessageDesk messaging expert to discuss your team's communication and inbox needs.

Also, feel free to try out MessageDesk’s shared team inbox by starting a free trial.