This has led to an influx of an average of more than 60 000 official job applications per year, rendering it increasingly challenging for recruiters to adhere to strict recruitment turn-around-times.

“The biggest obstacle for us has been the consistent and efficient management of high volumes of applications, especially for entry level positions” says Sharon van Horsten, head of Recruitment & Selection at Capitec Bank. “We had to rethink our traditional recruitment process in order to manage the gaps on a number of levels,” she says.

In line with the use of sophisticated technology at the core of Capitec Bank’s unique banking model, an SMS-based recruitment tool was developed to help the bank manage high-volume recruitment response more efficiently, with the aim to reduce recruitment time.

The new mobile recruiting solution txthire, was developed by Graylink, a leading provider of web and mobile recruitment automation solutions. Capitec Bank was the first company to test the solution in selected areas since June this year, followed by national implementation after two months of further refinement.

“With the txthire all initial candidate engagement is done via SMS,” explains Van Horsten. “Applicants are requested to apply to a vacancy via a premium-rated 2-way SMS number. They are then prompted to answer a series of questions via SMS,” she says.

Critical screening information, such as minimum requirements and biographical details, is automatically captured by txthire in a secure database. Screening questions can be weighted allowing for a % based match to be provided against each application. A bespoke reporting engine allows for data to be extracted from the database in a variety of formats and shared with relevant recruiters and hiring managers quickly and efficiently. Recruiters are able to immediately focus on qualitative telephonic interviewing and background screening, halving the time on this process as most qualifying questions have already been answered via SMS.

“This process eliminates the need for paper screening or electronic CV capturing, enabling a much more accurate candidate tracking and increased turn-around time for placements,” Van Horsten says.

“The greatest spin-offs have been the reduced paper usage and reduced administration, ultimately leading to huge time and cost savings for us. In some of the provinces we receive up to 200 CVs per day for branch positions, which required several man-hours per day just to collate and distribute these,” she says.

The web-based management interface is delivered through Graylink’s fully managed cloud infrastructure and required no infrastructure of software investment by Capitec. It is accessible via a browser and allows authorised Capitec recruiters to view, manage and report on data effortlessly.

Mark Gray, Managing Director of Graylink, says with the high penetration of mobile devices across all LSM’s in the South African market, SMS is the most prolific form of communication used by Capitec Bank’s target market. This solution also allows for the use of additional channels including instant messaging, social media and web channels in order to further enhance engagement with applicants and employees. Furthermore, an Application Programming Interface (API) allows third party systems – e.g. ERP or HRM system – to interact with txthire and pull data collected via SMS on-demand.

“Currently one of the main concerns with large recruiters such as Capitec Bank is the lack of a centralised application submission and storage platform. With a manual recruiting process, it is practically impossible to eliminate multiple applications and preventing candidates from applying and being considered twice in different regions,” Gray says.

He believes the net result of this system is the consistency of recruitment response. “With txthire, applications are submitted through a central channel and candidate information is available almost immediately for further processing. Recruiters are able to track specific applications instantly, and provide educated feedback and answers to queries about reasons for regret,” he concludes.