In a recent forum, Roy Mauer of SHRM made the following observations. The recruiting experience is, in essence, a communication experience. Communicating with potential candidates throughout the candidate journey via more-direct channels leaves lasting positive impressions. The goal is to communicate with transparency, responsiveness, and intuitive ease. According to Mauer, you’ll best accomplish this goal by implementing candidate communication tools such as texting software for recruiters and chatbots for careers sites. These tools foster better engagement among people who consider traditional forms of communication, such as e-mails and phone calls, to be inconvenient and cumbersome. Of course, recruiters and hiring managers have been texting candidates via their personal phones for many years. Do you really need special software to do this? Mauer thinks so. Texting in an unstructured, ad hoc way could actually end up harming the candidate’s experience. Text messaging software allows companies to personalize communications at scale, keep outreach organized, and analyze the performance of text-based campaigns. In the hyper-competitive real estate employment market, it’s increasingly hard to get a recruiting prospect’s attention and keep them engaged in the recruiting process. Don’t make it harder by ignoring one of the most responsive and personalized communication channels.