We are always interested in finding out what the best recruiters do. Many of our users asked us, “What do you think is the best way to contact a candidate ?” We looked around, and figured out that it’s not something anyone tried answering before. So we posed the question to our fans and followers.
What’s the most Effective way to contact a Candidate ?
- (Email / Text ) first and then Phone
- Phone first and then (Email/ Text )
If you read our last newsletter, we asked this question to our subscribers and it created quite a buzz.
Tips to Create a First Contact With a Candidate:
The initial votes on the poll were quite close before one of the options pulled away. For more details on what really happened see the Results of our Poll below.
See the Original Results here .
So, I guess this study puts to rest one of the most commonly asked questions. Or Does it?
Apparently not. There seems to be more to the numbers than what we observe at First Glance as one of the Data Science Jocks in our team pointed out.
The Real Story behind “The most Effective Way to Contact a Candidate is ..”
Well, he dug deeper into the data with some more analysis and came back with interesting insights on what the 2 groups of people involved in any Recruitment Conversations think. The Recruiters and Candidates.
He made some assumptions on the Sample data listed below.
- All the poll Participants were divided into Recruiters and Candidates
- HR Professionals were Classified into the Recruiter Category.
- Everyone else fell into the Candidate Category.
Once he did this classification he then reclassified the data and built this wonderful table.
So here’s what the data looks like when we break it down by Recruiters and Candidates.
The Most Effective Way to Contact a Candidate – The Truth according to Recruiters
Well, apparently the Recruiters are not sure, they are split whether to Email first or Call first. The 53% in favor of the Call first option could easily be a statistical error.
Many recruiters that we spoke with also suggested that this would depend on the kind of position you were hiring for. For example, if you were hiring for Delivery Partners then, calling would be the method of choice, as opposed to hiring for a VP, where emailing first would be preferred.
This rather close result indicates that you might need a horses for courses strategy.
The Most Effective Way to Contact a Candidate – From the Candidate’s Perspective
The Candidate participants in our poll of course were quite clear, 63% of them wanted to be emailed first before being contacted by email or text and only 37% of them wanted to be contacted by phone first.
This poll could also have biases, because of the nature of the audience and the Social Network it was conducted on. But it does indicate that for most white collar Job Candidates at least would prefer being emailed or texted prior to being called about Job.
If you would like more such data led insights then subscribe to our newsletter.
