Employers can now connect directly with talent via the world’s largest chat application

The day I have been waiting for is finally here: WhatsApp Business is opening its API! You may be wondering, why the excitement? After all, Talkpush has been doing chatbot recruitment for years, via Facebook Messenger, WeChat, web apps, SMS, etc. Isn’t this just another messaging platform? No no. There are three reasons why this is BIG news:

1. WhatsApp is the biggest messaging network, with over 1.5 billion monthly active users worldwide. It is bigger than Facebook Messenger and WeChat and handles multiple times the global volume of SMS messages.
2. WhatsApp is already a popular business communication channel (with 3 million businesses using it for messaging) for many professionals, with delivers higher read rates and faster response time.
3. WhatsApp is an encrypted communication channel, not a social media network, which means candidates can chat on it without having to worry about any invasion of privacy.

Your recruiters are likely already using it to message applicants. With verified Business Accounts you can ensure that all the conversations take place inside one account, furthermore, having a verified account shows legitimacy. With the APIs available available now we will see a lot of WhatsApp related innovation spanning across all segments of business.

So what does a WhatsApp enabled recruitment channel look like? you might ask.

In the case of Talkpush, you could proceed with the same sourcing channels. Your applicants can be funneled into WhatsApp anywhere where you can insert a link. That covers ads, career pages, referral pages, social media posts, blogs etc. Likewise, when using more traditional sources such as Job Boards, with the Talkpush integation your applicants will receive an email and/or SMS upon clicking apply that will allow them to transition to WhatsApp. With a verified business account your candidates won’t even have to know your number or save it in their contact list, your company name appears right away.

Once on WhatsApp, the candidates will be greeted by a branded chatbot that will reply at any time of the day and guide your candidates through the application process, based on the geography and the department they would like to apply for. Talkpush allows recruiters to ask candidates multi-media questions, covering text, audio, image and video for now the WhatsApp-based chatbot is restricted to text only, however, as soon as the WhatsApp API supports other media, we will be there to adopt it. Additionally, the chatbot can help to automatically sort out any questions they candidates might have concerning your company.

 

After having completed the automated screening interview, your recruiters are notified that you just received an application and you can reply to your lead straight from the CRM interface, keeping the conversation on WhatsApp and thus where it started.

So, are you ready to join the WhatsApp recruitment revolution? Then I’ve got good news: In collaboration with our partner Nexmo, we already built the first prototype (you can test by chatting with +16502812190 on WhatsApp or clicking below). If you’re interested in getting your own WhatsApp Business number, we can get you fast-tracked on the waitlist here.