Career Corner: Don’t Text and Hire

ByAngela Copeland

I recently learned about a new, shocking phenomenon. Maybe I’m getting old. In my world, there’s a right way and a wrong way to use text messages. The right way is to text people you actually know.

Almost everything else falls into the wrong waycategory. Occasionally, companies I shop at will try to text me and I opt out.The only time it feels good to interact with a business via text is whenthey’re confirming an appointment. For example, it can be helpful when a hairstylist confirms their appointment with you by text. It reminds you and allowsyou to easily interact with the business on your own time.

But, what I’ve seen lately doesn’t fall intothese categories. It takes text messaging to an entirely new level. Employers areusing text messaging in their hiring process. You heard me right. Employers aretexting job seekers.

I have to think that text messaging was somefancy feature added on to a recruiting package. I can imagine a sales repexplaining that, “This is a great way to text with candidates! It willmake your life so easy and will let the candidates know that you’re ahead ofthe game!”

But, I don’t see it this way at all. Job seekingis delicate. First of all, it’s very private. Very few people should be awareyou’re job searching. The last thing you need is text messages popping up onyour phone out of the blue from an employer. On top of any privacy concerns,job seeking is an extremely emotional process. It can be like a roller coaster.Often, job seekers will put aside certain time during the day to work on theirjob search. This is a great way to manage the stress that job seekers typicallyfeel.

You may wonder how companies could be using textmessaging to communicate with applicants. There are two main buckets that thesetext messages fall into. The first are messages that are sent by people, andthe second are automated messages that are sent by a computer.

When a company manually sends text messages, theperson is generally reaching out to schedule or reschedule interviews.Recruiters also use text messages to ask candidates how an interview went witha hiring manager. These messages aren’t ideal, but they aren’t the worst.

The worst are text messages sent by computer.Companies are using them to reject candidates. Let that sink in. Remember howpainful automated rejection emails are (the ones you check at your home, in thetime you’ve devoted to your job search)? Now, imagine you’re going about yourday and a rejection pops up on your phone, from a job you were truly interestedin. Ouch!

Companies, remember: you don’t have to use everyshiny piece of technology on your new applicant tracking system. Treat jobseekers the way you would want to be treated.

AngelaCopeland, a career expert and founder of Copeland Coaching, can be reached at copelandcoaching.com.

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