Did you know that the very first SMS message was sent in the UK on 3 December 1992, by a 22 year old test engineer and contained the words “Merry Christmas”?  Today,  SMS text messaging is the most widely used data application in the world.  More than 6.1 trillion messages were sent in 2010, three times the number of SMS’s sent in 2007! This means that 200 000 SMS’s are sent every second around the world! 

The use of text messaging for business purposes has grown considerably in recent years and as companies seek competitive advantages, many employees turn to new technology and real-time messaging such as SMS. 

Placement Partner strives to be at the forefront of technology and offers a simple to use, yet very valuable SMS function.  SMS is a fast, effective and affordable solution for consultants to maintain contact with their candidates. 

Some examples of text messages consultants can send to candidates would be: to confirm interview times, send candidate’s directions to get to an interview, the time and place of an interview, confirm receipt of a CV, feedback on a job application process, to check availability of a candidate or simply to check a candidate’s interest in a position.

SMS’s can be sent in bulk to candidates already on your database or candidate details can be inserted manually.  All sent messages are recorded on a log and the status of the message (e.g. delivered, undelivered, pending) can be checked against the cellphone number the SMS was sent to.

Candidates can reply to the SMS sent via Placement Partner and all replies will also be recorded in the SMS log.  A consultant can subscribe to receive SMS’s reply notifications either via email or SMS on their settings menu.

To send an SMS, click SMS -> Send SMS on the top navigation bar and follow the steps 1 to 3.

Do remember however that in order to send SMS’s from Placement Partner, you first need to buy SMS credits.  To buy credits or for more information on SMS bundles, please email joanne@parallel.co.za .