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Help! I'm struggling to contact my candidate

Comms methods and timings for getting past the 'Attempted to contact - try again' milestone

Nicola Ricketts avatar
Written by Nicola Ricketts
Updated over 4 months ago

Your staff have been sharing jobs and delivering candidates to your door (hooray!), but some candidates are proving tricky to get hold of.

How many times should you try to contact candidates and which comms methods are most effective? Read on to find out more...

Comms methods

Text message is the most impactful way to make initial contact with candidates.

The open rate of text messages is 98%, compared with just 20% open rate for email.

One Care Friends customer reported doubling their candidate response rate by using text instead of email!

Why calling can be less effective

We all know that when we get a call from a number that we don't recognise, we are reluctant to answer. This can be especially true of our passive candidates who aren't actively waiting for a call about a new role.

We recommend texting candidates the moment you receive your new candidate alert email.

When and how often should I follow up?

We recommend the flow of activity in the graphic below. You may wish to adapt this but do remember, an initial response to an EOI is key, followed by regular and frequent contact.

Have you considered reactivating any of your archived candidates?

Remember, Care Friends candidates are proven to be:

  • the best quality

  • stay longer

  • much more likely to convert to a hire

Use your Care Friends candidate archive as a talent pool. Regularly check in and get in touch with your archived candidates to see if things have changed for anyone who you attempted to contact or was suitable to progress. Their decision not to engage or pursue their interest in a role initially may have been purely down to timing rather than a conscious decision that they didn't want to do the role. Regular communications will keep your organisation top of mind, and ensure they know you would still be interested in discussing the job with them.

What's next?

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