Recruiters have to communicate extensively internally and externally. Making sure that communication is easy, and more importantly, secure should be a priority for any recruiter.
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During recruitment, secure communications protect both the recruiter and the potential new hire. This especially rings true when HR teams are recruiting individuals who are employed at competitor companies. Recruiters need to keep the conversation with these candidates confidential, either because the potential new hire simply does not want his or her current employer to know about it, or there is a noncompete contract in place.
The Downside of Common Communication Channels
The traditional means of communication for recruiters often fall short of what they need to in order to successfully engage candidates and keep conversations secure. Though e-mail is often viewed as the simplest and most direct way of contacting a potential new hire, it comes with a lot of potential issues.
E-mail can easily be forwarded and shared with anyone, accidentally or intentionally. As the workforce becomes increasing mobile, bring your own device (BYOD) practices see many employees comingle their work and personal information on a single device. This practice can potentially create privacy issues if a candidate is indeed e-mailing with a recruiter.
As an alternative, hiring managers and recruiters have turned to LinkedIn. However, using this communication tool does not circumvent the privacy issues of e-mail. A candidate may link their business e-mail to LinkedIn®, which means they receive notifications, including recruiter messages, to their work account.
As this information is accessible by the candidate’s company, his or her employer could potentially find out about the interaction—leaving him or her less likely to engage for fear of repercussions.
Another important issue while recruiting is speed and responsiveness. According to the 2015 Mobile Marketing Watch, text messages have a 98% open rate and a 45% response rate, while e-mail has only a 20% open rate and a 6% response rate. Ensuring that response times are as high as possible are critical for the recruiter competing for high profile candidates.
Recognizing the pitfalls of relying on e-mail and social media for recruiting, some HR teams and hiring managers have already turned to messaging services to aid them in these “off the grid” conversations. However, the free, consumer-focused apps available today do not have the security and sender controls in place to safeguard conversations. To successfully engage candidates and avoid the security pitfalls of traditional communications, recruiters need to utilize an enterprise messaging app that meets consumer demand while providing the security required.
Tomorrow we’ll look at some of the benefits of ephemeral mobile messaging.