A picture is worth a thousand words, and so are emojis as they can give a whole new meaning to conversations and transform your candidate engagement strategy.

In this article, we will explore scenarios talent acquisition teams should be using emojis to get better results during the recruitment process and the top emojis to use in 2022.

The use of emojis can positively impact your hiring process, turning what’s generally perceived as a monotonous process into an exciting activity for both candidates and recruiters. Emojis convey emotional overtones that are usually lost in plain text messages and in recruitment, these emojis can be used to show your brand personality, especially when engaging with candidates on digital platforms. 

This is even more relevant now that most companies have taken their entire recruitment operations online, from sourcing to even onboarding, while using digital recruitment assistants like chatbots to carry on conversations with candidates 24/7.

Emojis can serve as an extra layer of emotion and personality to make up for the lack of handshaking and other valuable interactions that happen when meeting face to face.

You can even develop an “emoji tone”, using 2 or 3 that most relate to your brand on social media and emails. At Talkpush, we have two favorites 🤖 🚀 — and we use them all the time so much that they’ve become part of our tone and fit into our employer brand. 

Matter of fact, emojis have become so widely accepted that failing to incorporate them in your communication online, can pass on a false perception of being “too serious” and not a fun place to work. The trick is to not overdo it and discover the right emojis to use in certain situations.

But why do recruiters use emojis to communicate vacancies? It’s not only because it’s cute, it works. Using emojis on social media job ads and communications via email, SMS, Facebook Messenger, or WhatsApp are actually proven to increase click and read rates! 

To help you ensure you are taking advantage of all the situations emojis can positively impact your recruitment process, we will be sharing the top five emojis every recruiter should be using in 2022:

1. The purple unicorn

As a recruiter, the purple squirrel is a common technology used to describe a candidate that possesses all of the right traits and experience required for the job. In the world of emojis, the purple unicorn can serve as an icon for the purple rabbit. Use this emoji in your job description on those rare occasions when you are trying to illustrate you are looking for candidates with unique skills. And remember, since unicorns are rare, the purple unicorn helps applicants to know you are also looking for a unique candidate and this can deter the unqualified from applying.

2. Superhero

Superheroes have amazing abilities to do what the average person can’t do and so, everyone wants a superhero on their team. Using this super cool emoji is a fun way of letting applicants know you are on the lookout for candidates who can handle the pressure, complete tasks quickly, and manage multiple projects with ease. You can also use it to describe your team to potential hires so they know how exceptional you all are. Outside of recruitment, use this emoji to celebrate a teammate and also on special days that recognize employee contributions. 

3. Rocketship

All aboard!

We love the rocket ship at Talkpush and we are not afraid to use it, because it helps us communicate all of the exciting features we’ve just released and also announce upcoming events. For recruiters, the rocketship can serve as a call out to all applicants to quickly send in their applications, or to announce fresh vacancies.

4. Search

This emoji is pretty common and frequently used during candidate engagement. At Talkpush, our 24/7 AI chatbot uses the search emoji to guide applicants through the application processes especially when searching for the right jobs for them. The search emoji can also be used by recruiters to show they are actively searching for candidates, so do not be afraid to use it.

5. Ninja

The ninja emoji can seem scary but that’s because it’s not for every candidate. It's for those roles that require specialized skills where a lot of precision is required, moving stealthily in the shadows and completing project after project that keeps the boat afloat. Know any roles that this emoji will be suitable for 😊?

Now let’s elaborate on those hiring scenarios where using the right emoji can help talent acquisition executives attract the best talents and get impressive results.

1. Searching for a specific kind of talent

Whether you’re hiring for a technical role, or need someone with a sunny disposition in customer service, the right emojis on your job post can act as a first filter. Emojis mean different things in different communities, so if you’re fluent in your ideal candidates’ emoji language use it to your advantage. Not only will you attract the right people, but you’ll also weed out the ones that don’t connect with your post (you probably don’t want them anyway 😅) 

There are several ways you can go about including emojis in your job post. They could be part of the job title, like “Sr. Copywriter 📝” or they can be part of the job description. At Talkpush, we sometimes use the little fire emoji instead of bullet points for the coolness factor. 

2. Re-engagement campaigns

Which message would you be more inclined to answer?

Option A: Hello, I haven’t heard from you. Would you like to continue your application?

Option B: Hi there, I haven’t heard from you 🥺. Would you like to continue your application? 🚀

The obvious choice is clear.

Messages with emojis have an 80% higher open rate, are proven to increase conversions by 9%, and actually better than using pictures by 9% as well. Getting your candidates to complete their applications or giving them a gentle nudge towards the next step of the process is an excellent opportunity for inserting emojis! Especially if you’ve got a conversational agent, you can program your AI-enabled recruiting assistant to send off these re-engagement messages after a certain amount of time has passed without any interaction. 

3. Follow-up emails

You’ve probably guessed what we’re going to say next… emails with emojis in the subject line get opened more! Although, you need to put some thought into this one. Too many emojis or just plain weird ones will have the opposite effect. If you’re going to pick one type of email to put all your emoji creative power into, we recommend it be follow-ups. When you follow up, it usually means you want the candidate to take an action they haven’t yet taken, but you already have some sort of rapport. In this type of communication, emojis work great!

You can use them as a persuasion tool to elicit responses from candidates. But appealing to human emotions, even if it is through automated messaging, is the most successful strategy to build relationships in any industry. Emojis are a great way to do that.

4. Asking for feedback

One of the most popular ways to ask candidates to rate their experience and complete those candidate satisfaction surveys is with emojis. It’s just easier. They don’t have to type anything out, they can just click on the sad emoji, the neutral emoji, or the happy emoji; case closed. Consider trying this out if you haven’t already; you’re guaranteed to get more responses. 

What do you think about this article so far?

 😐 🙁 😊

5. Say more with little space

Have just a line of space available but plenty to say? Try emojis! For example, flags can be used to show different locations in your subject line. It takes two seconds to add a little flag to the header in the job description, doesn’t require much thought, and instantly makes your description more visually engaging. It also lets people know right off the bat where you’re looking to hire and seeing their flag on your header could increase goodwill and also reduce applications from candidates that are not in your target locations.

Emojis can also be used to create multiple-choice questions that take less space. 

Check out how Talkpush customer Alorica Jamaica includes flags to go along with job locations in their chatbot flow   👇

6. Promote diversity and inclusion 

Sometimes, languages aren't exactly gender-neutral. Job positions like “salesman” abound, and even though they’re not looking specifically for a salesman, many women and non-binary people will feel alienated. Emojis can help you get rid of that problem, by relying less on words and making your copy more visual. It goes beyond gender, emojis are a pretty international language, so you’ll be inherently attracting a larger talent pool that specific words tend to narrow. Gendered and exclusive language is a real problem in recruitment, and it usually isn’t as easy as changing “salesman” to “sales associate.” Certain words, attitudes, and emotions are associated with one gender, race, or sexual orientation over others. Language is complicated like that — with emojis, you don’t have to think so hard about it.

7. Make your candidates smile

Emojis can be a great universal way to deliver a joke. Having a sense of humor, and showing that the recruitment process can be playful is a great way to attract younger talent, and to let them relax during the recruitment process so that they can do a great job during the interview and throughout the rest of the hiring process.

Bonus! Here's what our Conversational Design Team at Talkpush has discovered about emojis when helping customers map out their candidate engagement strategies on Facebook and WhatsApp

Emojis are huge on messaging platforms, especially on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. But, using emojis here does require some strategic thinking — since they can inspire candidates to take action and make for a better, visually engaging experience. 

It’s important to think about key differences between both platforms when thinking about emoji placement and their purpose. Facebook Messenger and Instagram offer a more dynamic experience than WhatsApp with buttons, quick replies, and other features like image carousels.

At Talkpush, our Conversational Designers program our bots with emojis representative of each candidate inquiry to make it more appealing — and get that click! We’ve got descriptive emojis for almost every button and quick replies.

Descriptive means it’s more of a symbol of the option and candidates are able to easily identify what the button is for without reading the text. Without emojis, our FB Messenger and Instagram bots could be a little boring: it’s the difference between a list of options and a list of highly descriptive buttons! 

TaskUs is the descriptive emojis master! Here is a sample of using emojis alongside text to pass across a message

For WhatsApp, the rules change, but emojis are just as important. To make up for the lack of buttons and interactive cards, our Conversational Designers recommend using descriptive emojis in their place. Use the number emojis to list options, hand pointers to signal important comms, and most of all, use them in places you want candidates to take action.  

Check out how Alorica Jamaica makes visually engaging messages on WhatsApp using emojis at the beginning of each sentence and pointing out actions candidates can take. 👇

“As a Conversational Designer, the use of emojis is extremely important in the chatbot flow. It helps us highlight commands or important CTAs to the user, which in the end will make their interaction with the bot easier and create a more engaging experience.” — Luis Rios, Conversational Designer, Talkpush

🔥What do you think? Ready to start using emojis in thoughtful and engaging ways? The end goal is to build deeper connections with your candidates. Abusing the use of emojis will get you blacklisted real quick. But, if you do so with care and thinking about who your candidates are, you’ll see all those metrics like engagement, completion rate, and candidate satisfaction go way up.

👉If you want an emoji-savvy chatbot to help you engage with candidates on social media SMS and WhatsApp, schedule a call with us.