Why Calling is Better Than Emailing Candidates

The technology has made it simpler than ever to recruit. Instead of having to call multiple people, you can email applicants to tell them if they've got the position.

The digital approach has some advantages. You can organize or archive your emails sent in folders if you need to refer to them later. Emails also give you the ability to edit and proofread exactly what you want to communicate. You can even track emails that you send out to see if they were read by your candidates. It is also easy to provide the required details in an email about the open job role.

1. Calls help you emerge from the competitio

Thanks to social media platforms like LinkedIn, recruiters are increasingly dependent on digital messages. In particular, many prefer to use automation tools which allow them to send out multiple emails in a short time.

Your top recruits will definitely receive several emails about recruitment a day. With time, the candidate would only delete those messages automatically. Telephone calls are less common and so distinguish you from your competitors. That makes it more likely the candidate will listen to your offer and accept it.

2. You can know them

That can be critical if you want to figure out who the person who applied for the job is. Their manner of telephoning and the way they react to you will tell you a lot about that person without having to face them up. However with email, much of the time you send your message out into the void and hope that the person will be at the other end and will be able to pick it up.

3. Calls are more reminiscent

After a while, emails, particularly automated ones, can all seem the same. And when you give candidates an email, they can only glaze over the message before hitting the delete button. This is particularly true if the email seems to be impersonal or cold, as do so many recruitment emails.

Calls over the phone are much more memorable. The call days or even weeks later can remind your nominee. This increases your recruitment chances.
4.Shows greater authority

Telephone calls tend to be more authoritative than an email or instant message because it is a more conventional contact medium. This also demonstrates that you care enough about the person you've picked up the phone for. The applicant has undoubtedly already received hundreds of emails from recruiters so taking the time to contact them shows you are taking their job quest as seriously as they are.

5. More efficient

Most people don't open an email as soon as it is received. Some even allow it to fill their inboxes with hundreds or thousands of unread messages. Yet a lot of people answer their ringing phones or check their voicemails immediately. So, when you make a call, you should get a quicker response.

Conclusion

Although a phone call may not always be appropriate, as the two case studies above have shown, relying solely on email as a method of communication can also have its pitfalls. It would be easier in a perfect world to use a mix of the two, and easier still to know when to use them would be even better.