How Often Do Recruiters Exchange Text Messages with Candidates?

We recently conducted a poll of Top Echelon Network recruiters by posting a question in the Members’ Area.

That question was as follows:

How often do you exchange text messages with candidates?

Results:

The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of recruiters that selected each one:

• All the time — 23.0%
• Sometimes — 33.6%
• Rarely — 23.8%
• Never — 19.7%

Analysis:

Surprisingly, the results of this poll were all over the place. The most popular answer was “rarely” at 33.6%, while “rarely” was second at 23.8% and “all the time” was a close third at 23.0%

However, a fair amount of poll participants (19.7%) indicated that they “never” exchange text messages with candidates.

In this technologically driven age of the Internet, and more specifically smartphones, one would think that recruiters would text with candidates more than these results would indicate. However, that’s clearly not the case, at least as far as Top Echelon Network recruiters are concerned.

Conclusion:

As with many poll questions of this nature, personal preference plays a large role.  There are many different ways to stay in contact with a candidate throughout the hiring and onboarding process.  What one recruiter prefers to do another recruiter might shun.

However, how much of a role does age play in these poll results?  In other words, are younger recruiters more likely to exchange text messages with candidates on a regular basis than older recruiters?

Unfortunately, this poll did not track the age of the recruiters participating it, nor the amount of time they’ve been working in the industry, so than information is not readily discernable.  However, it can be debated.

What do you think? Does both personal preference and age play a role in determining whether or not a recruiter exchanges text messages with candidates?  What’s been your experience?

Post your comments below!