First Contact

Not long ago one of my people came in to my office to talk about her recruiting project.  She was starting to schedule interviews, but two of the five people she contacted hadn’t emailed her back.   Someone in her department suggested sending a follow up text.

I had an immediate, negative response.  After that, I wondered if I was being old school.

I am as flexible with the rules as any HR person can manage while still breathing, but in certain matters of etiquette I am complete snob.  For example, when I post a job on LinkedIn, I find a huge number of candidates will “Apply” without including a resumé or cover note.  “Why can’t you just go to the LinkedIn profile?”  I can.   For 14 seconds, which is more effort than the candidates put into the “application”.  And as a practical matter, that makes it really difficult to sort candidates for the hiring managers to review.  I understand this might be a losing battle.

So I asked myself why texting a candidate made me feel so icky.  I came up with the following:

1. I refuse to write incomplete sentences to a stranger.  It is unprofessional.
2. As the candidate would not recognize my cell phone number, I would have to open with my full name and my employer’s name before even getting to the point.  I realize a text isn’t limited to 140 characters, but seriously.
3. It is theoretically possible that the candidate has a limit of some kind on receiving texts.  Thus texting a stranger is presumptuous.

I asked around my office, beginning with some of my youngest people.  I asked my people on Facebook.  And I started to feel more validated.  Then, I grew really bold and started asking job candidates the question during their interviews.  Hey – straight to the source, right?

My conclusion is this: we should be communicating with candidates in a way that is most comfortable for them.  If that turns out to be texting, then Fine.  But the only way to answer that question is by asking the candidate directly.  First Contact should not be done by Text.

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