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Candidate texting

Start texting your candidates. It’s faster than email!

Updated over a week ago

⚠️ You will receive 50 free texts when you first activate Texting. You can purchase a separate texting subscription when you’ve used up your 50 free texts, for example, $75 in the United States / €75 in Europe (based on the main subscription’s currency).

⚠️ Please note that while we do our best to ensure the best experience for you, text messages are subject to local country and carrier regulations, which may impact the deliverability of your texts. For example, some countries or carriers may overwrite your number, preventing the candidate from replying to you. Please visit this article for more information. You can view country-specific regulations here.

⚠️ Due to French regulations restricting application to person (A2P) messaging, we are not able to provide this feature for French phone numbers at the moment.


In this article:


Note: You need the “View text messages” and “Send text messages” permissions to text candidates.

Candidate consent

⚠️ Before texting your candidates, you need them to consent to receiving text messages. That’s because some countries have laws restricting unsolicited phone contact. To learn more about this, please visit TCPA.

There are two basic ways of getting the candidate’s consent.

When the candidate applies for a job

When a candidate applies for a job published on your CareersHub or Indeed, they will have the option to consent to receive text messages from you regarding that or any other job offer.

Adding consent manually

For candidates who don’t apply by themselves (e.g., sourced or referred candidates), you can manually add the consent to the system on their behalf. You can do so if the candidate has already agreed to receive texts, e.g., in a phone call or email conversation.

⚠️ Please note that manually adding the consent without the candidate’s knowledge will violate Twilio Messaging Policy and potentially your country’s regulations.

  1. Open a candidate profile.

  2. Navigate to Messages > Text.

  3. Click Add consent.

  4. Choose the date on which you obtained the consent and confirm by clicking Add consent.

Tracking and managing consent

When you open a candidate profile, in the Messages > Text section, you will always see the consent status and whether or not you can text the candidate.

When you click on the consent component, you can do the following:

  1. See who added the consent and when (if it was the candidate or another team member on their behalf).

  2. Withdraw consent — you might use it, e.g., when the candidate asks you to stop texting them.

  3. Add consent (e.g. if it was withdrawn and the candidate changed their mind).

📌 If the consent hasn’t been added or has been withdrawn, the texting input will be blocked to prevent sending unsolicited messages.

SMS keywords

Candidates can also manage their consent status with keywords sent to your company phone number.

  1. STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT — withdrawing consent

  2. START, YES, and UNSTOP — adding consent

📌 If the candidate uses a keyword to withdraw their consent, you cannot add it manually on their behalf anymore.

Sending and receiving text messages

If a candidate has consented to receive text messages and has provided a valid phone number, you can start texting them.

To start a text:

  1. Open a candidate profile.

  2. Navigate to Messages > Text.

  3. Add your message in the input at the bottom.

  4. Click Send.

You can delay sending your messages if you click on Send later and schedule them for a later date and time.

When the candidate replies to your message, you will be able to see that in the candidate profile:

💡 If you follow the candidate and have the “Actions are taken on the candidate’s profile” notification setting enabled, you will receive an additional notification:

Candidates with multiple phone numbers

💡 If your candidate has more than one phone number added, you can switch between them. Each number will have a separate messaging history.

Best practices for candidate texting

  • Always identify yourself in your first text message so the candidate knows who the message is from.

  • Give the candidate an out if they don’t wish to be texted. Add a sentence like “Reply STOP to unsubscribe” to your first message.

  • Do not send content that can be received as inappropriate, objectionable, or offensive.

To learn more about good practices, please visit Twilio Messaging Policy and Acceptable Use Policy.

FAQ

How many characters can a single text message contain?

A single text message can usually contain up to 160 characters. You can send and receive longer messages (up to 1400 characters), which will be automatically split into parts (called “segments”). Such messages will be displayed as single texts, but each segment will deplete one text message from your available pool.

It’s also important to remember that certain characters or emojis are counted as multiple characters and thus will get you to the upper limit faster. To learn more about this, please visit What The Heck Is A Segment? and SMS Character Limit.

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