Roughly a decade ago, Beyond (now Nexxt) added a little checkbox to its job-seeker registration form without knowing exactly how it would benefit the bottom line then, or in the future.
The box asked for permission to text users about job opportunities. Mobile marketing was just taking off back then, and strict regulations were in place that penalized advertisers who messaged people who didn’t expressively opt in for those communications.
Ultimately, Nexxt took a smart bet that text messaging would be a part of its business, and getting permission ahead of actually knowing how texting would be a part of business made sense. Years later, TextRecruit introduced them to the opportunity and Text2Hire was born, letting employers blast job opportunities to Nexxt job seekers.
Announced in July, the next money-making opportunity for these two turns out to be sourcing. TextRecruit calls it TextTalent. The company says it’s a new way to quickly search, screen, and schedule time with candidates from the best third party networks.
How’s it work? When employers import candidates in TextRecruit, they can now select candidates in Nexxt’s database of some seven million job seekers who have opted in to get text messages. Recruiters will be able to search for candidates by job title, location, and industry.
From there users complete one of three types of searches: narrow, moderate, and broad. A narrow search will only search the candidate’s job title, a moderate search will search job title and resume, and a broad search will search job title, resume, and any titles of interest to the candidate.
Chosen candidates will be added to a text recruiting campaign. In order to protect candidate data, recruiters will only be able to view a job seeker’s contact information if they respond to your campaign.
To be sure, TextRecruit is looking to add more sources to TextTalent. “Just Nexxt right now,” said Birch Faber, VP of marketing at TextRecruit. “Looking to add more talent networks in the future.”
The biggest hurdle, of course, is connecting with job-seeker databases where users have actually opted in for text messages, and having enough data to make a dent. Thanks to the decision to get permission from users long ago, Nexxt is in the best position to take advantage today’s hot text recruiting trend, and pepper it with a dose of sourcing.
Disclosure: Nexxt is a sponsor of my podcast.