Candidate email open rates are bad and reply rates are worse. Messaging fixes that — a text from a recruiter gets read. Which is precisely why the industry is at the highest risk of destroying the channel for itself.
Where it genuinely works
| Moment | Why messaging |
|---|---|
| Application received | Acknowledgement within minutes, not a week |
| Interview scheduling | Back-and-forth that email makes agonising |
| Day-before interview reminder | Reduces no-shows, which are endemic |
| Post-interview status | The silence after an interview is the biggest complaint candidates have |
| Offer stage logistics | Fast, and the candidate is checking their phone constantly |
| Placed candidate, week one | Check-in that catches problems while fixable |
Row four is the one that costs firms their reputation. A candidate who interviewed and heard nothing tells people. A candidate who was told no, promptly and kindly, usually does not.
Meridian Staffing
iMessage
Hi Priya — Elena at Meridian. They've gone with someone else for the ops role, sorry. Genuinely strong interview though, and I've got two similar roles opening in September if you want me to keep you in mind.
disappointing but thanks for telling me. yes please keep me posted
Where it destroys your reputation
Sourcing outreach to people who never applied
Texting a passive candidate whose number you found somewhere is the single fastest way to get reported, blocked and eventually flagged. A phone number scraped from a CV database or a LinkedIn export is not consent — it is never consent. Do sourcing on channels built for it, and reserve messaging for people who have engaged with you.
This is not only a compliance issue. High rates of recipients blocking or reporting a line is the strongest signal that gets a number flagged, and a staffing firm blasting cold candidates will accumulate that signal faster than almost any other industry. See why numbers get flagged.
Rules that keep this working
- Only message people who applied or opted in. No exceptions, no matter how good the match.
- Name yourself and the role in the first line. Candidates are talking to six firms.
- One follow-up, then stop. A candidate who did not reply twice has answered.
- Always send the rejection. It is the message that determines whether they come back.
- Separate consent for job alerts from consent for the role they applied to.
The measure
Track these
- Interview no-show rate before and after reminders
- Median time from application to first human contact
- Candidate re-engagement rate — do rejected candidates come back?
- Block and opt-out rate, watched weekly as an early warning
That last one is the canary. In most industries opt-out rate is a vanity metric; in recruiting it is the leading indicator of whether you are about to lose the channel entirely.