People love texting. In fact, texting is the most widely-used app on a smartphone, “with 97 percent of Americans using it at least once a day.” And among the age group that recruiters often target (18 – 29), 100 percent of those surveyed use texting. In addition, the odds of a tech-savvy or innovator recruiting prospect or candidate not being a frequent user of texting are near zero. Obviously, most recruiters already use texting to communicate with candidates, but for some reason, few are aware of and only a small percentage use texting as an interviewing tool.
I recommend an approach that I call “text-interviewing, which is where the two parties exchange interview questions and answers via text messaging. Now initially, text-interviewing might sound crazy, but it has several advantages over most interview approaches. It especially makes sense because of the often “almost instant” response time (90 percent of all text messages are read within three minutes) and the amazingly high percentage of text messages that actually get a response. In fact, the all-important response rate for texting is much higher than that of voice, social media, or email messaging.
The Many Benefits Associated With “Text-Interviewing”
The mobile phone by itself has many advantages for recruiters. As a result, many recruiters have justifiably learned to use it for live video and telephone interviews. But I urge recruiters and hiring managers to consider a supplementary approach, which is live or even asynchronous interview using only text. For recruiters who are always saying they want an “outside the box solution,” this text-interviewing approach has many advantages including:
- Reduced stress means a better quality of hire because interviewees perform better — face-to-face interviews during work hours mean that the interviewee must make excuses as to why they will be absent, and having to rush to the interview can put a great deal of stress on the interviewee. And when an out-of-town interviewee must travel to the interview, they may even arrive exhausted. However because text-interviews are “remote,” they can be conducted without having to leave work, which will likely mean that the interviewee will perform better. And unlike telephone and video interviews, there is no background noise in text interviews that may distract the interviewer from hearing or understanding the answers. For international interviews, the interviewee freshness factor is even more important. Removing these three factors may actually mean that more currently employed and “in-demand” candidates will be willing to participate in your interviews. The reduced stress and the possibility of more time for the interviewer to craft the best questions and the interviewee to more thoroughly provide their best answer may also contribute to an improvement in your quality of hire.
- A faster “time to fill in” because interviews are much easier to schedule — because most job seekers carry their mobile phone with them 24/7 during their job search, it opens the possibility of scheduling text interviewing not only during the day but also at night and on weekends. And unlike voice interviews, text interviews can’t be overheard by others (or seen by others close by). And as a result (depending on your ethical standards), these interviews can even be done during a candidate break at work. And there is no requirement that textinterviews even need to be scheduled because they can be done asynchronously on the fly, with each party completing their part whenever they have a break. Taken together, the ease of scheduling and the faster response time means that text interviews can reduce your time to fill dramatically.
- Managers can save time by scanning the answers — busy managers can’t quickly scan through verbal answers to interview questions in a live or recorded telephone or video interview. However, because with text interviews the results are written in a narrative form, a manager if they choose can quickly scan through the answers, once again saving the hiring manager time.
- Text interviews that are not going well can easily be ended early — when a face-to-face interview is obviously going poorly, it is difficult for the interviewer to end them early. This is because the individual has invested so much time and effort into scheduling and getting to the interview, in order to be respectful of that effort, it is often awkward for the recruiter or the manager to end them early. In face-to-face interviews, it is normal for the candidate to expect at least 30 minutes or an hour of your time. However because they are so uncommon, the interviewing candidate seldom has a fixed time expectation with text-interviews. And as a result, they are easier to abruptly end after only a few questions, once it becomes clear to the interviewer that you don’t have a desirable candidate (and vice versa).
- The likelihood of bias is reduced — text interviewing eliminates or minimizes many factors that can lead to unconscious bias in hiring. There will likely be less bias because, with text-interviewing, you don’t see the interviewee’s face, body language, mannerisms, or voice or hear any accent. At least one senior executive at Hearst has used text interviews to help to minimize bias in hiring. The lack of distractions also allow the interviewer to be more focused on the answers provided, and the interviewee is also not distracted by any of the characteristics of the interviewer. And if the name of the interviewee is initially kept confidential, this may reduce discrimination against women and diverse individuals. Compare the diversity of candidates who were selected using text interviews, as compared to normal interviews, to measure how much better they perform.
- There is a permanent record of the interview that can be reviewed later — the questions and the answers in text interviews are automatically recorded on the phones of both parties. This makes it possible for the interviewer to re-review the interview answers at a later time. And that also means that anyone on the hiring team who cannot be present during the initial interview can also review the interview questions and answers at any later time. This permanent record and legal documentation may also help you minimize any potential legal issues because there will be a permanent record of everything that was said or not said. Incidentally, because the entire interview is documented, the interviews of high-quality candidates who are not eventually hired can be easily forwarded to other recruiters or hiring managers who can consider them without having to go through another interview.
- The cool factor may help to improve your employer brand image — most interview processes lack any feature that makes them memorable. So using text interviewing will certainly be considered as novel by the candidate, and some may participate in the interview simply to experience the novel practice. And it may even be considered cool because it also uses technology and the mobile platform. As more people talk about it on social media and in the press, it may help to reinforce or even build your employer brand image.
- A lower cost per hire because they require no out-of-pocket spending or training — for most corporate users, there are no costs, new technology additions, or any need to work with a vendor when you implement text-interviewing. Because they are intuitive, they require no training and normally a simple one-page list of suggestions and things to avoid is all that is needed. With its many benefits and no out-of-pocket costs, this approach has a high ROI.
- A contribution to sustainability — with text interviews, there is no travel, conference room space, or resources used (beyond the few electrons that are used during texting). And as a result, text interviewing is much more environmentally friendly than traditional face-to-face interviews.
- Interview results can be assessed anywhere — because the contents of the interview remain on the phone of the hiring manager, they can carry it around with them and instantly refer to it at any time.
- Global capabilities — because text messaging appears in a narrative form, if necessary, the answers can be provided in a different language, and later translated by using a software program. And because even the poorest parts of the world have the technology to support text messaging, there are no technical restrictions or limitations. And text messaging does not require the large bandwidth or the video camera capability that are necessary for live video interviews.
Several Variations of Text-Interviews to Consider
Some of the many possible text-interview variations are listed below.
- Text-interviews can be live and interactive — many hiring managers enjoy the interactivity of live interviews. So one variation of text-interviewing is for the interview to be live when both parties have an available block of time. Using the live text interview model, each question is answered before another question is provided. Team text interviews are also possible using conference call features.
- A lumping model is also available — another possible variation is similar to a questionnaire interview, where the questions are aggregated and sent all at once to the interviewee. They answer and return them all at once when they have completed all of their answers. If the recruiter or hiring manager prefers it, this model gives interviewees much more time to think about their answers before sending them back. Incidentally, when you submit the questions all at once, they tend to be the same questions, so you get more consistent interview questions across different interviewees for the same job. Unfortunately, this delayed model also provides a greater opportunity for the interviewee to research or get help on their answers.
- Text interviews can be asynchronous — asynchronous means that time can pass between each question or each response. Under this approach, hiring managers can take their time reviewing each interview answer. And they can also at their leisure choose their next question. Both of which are an added advantage for busy hiring managers.
- There are voice options if there are texting issues — if the hiring manager or interviewee can’t type fast on their phone, there are many “voice to text” options available. Incidentally, because text users frequently use a variety of shortened “text language” words and phrases in their messages, let the interviewee known in advance your expectation when it comes to grammar, shortened words, and OMG acronyms.
Some Additional Things to Consider
You can improve your interview documentation if you require hiring managers to archive them or to forward the text interview contents and interviewer comments to HR. If you want to provide your candidates with the look and feel of your facility and your team, you can send them a video tour as a supplement to the interview. As the first to offer this approach, your firm will develop a competitive advantage over other firms which are struggling to offer something different in the recruiting process. Survey a sample of the interviewers and interviewees in order to identify problems and to continually improve the process.
You should also look at the final hires to see if a higher percentage of them (than the average) participated in the text interviewing process.
Final Thoughts
After literally decades of absolutely no change in interviewing, during the last five years, we have seen numerous innovative new approaches to interviewing. And in order to continue that improvement, the time is right for shifting to an “interview from anywhere” approach, where text-interviewing is one additional option. Even if you use face-to-face interviews for the final interview, consider text interviewing for at least the initial interview. This is because it has so many advantages, including a higher quality of hire, less bias, a lower cost per hire as a result of lower travel costs, a reduced environmental impact, an improved candidate experience, and a shorter time to fill. At a time when texting is all the rage, jump on the bandwagon and add it to your list of interview options.