The candidate who replied an hour ago is already talking to someone else: three watches for a recruiter's phone
Reply inside the hour, from your phone. Three recruiter watches: a call when a candidate replies, an alarm for LinkedIn or WhatsApp, a call before an interview.
A shortlisted candidate who answers your interview email and hears nothing until tomorrow has already read your silence as a maybe, and a maybe loses to whoever picked up. Three watches on your phone close most of that gap. On iPhone, the Gmail and calendar watches work fully, but the LinkedIn and WhatsApp one needs OLL.E PinG, a Bluetooth keyring, because iOS will not let an app read other apps' notifications. Android does it out of the box.
Why do candidates go quiet?
Usually because someone else got there first. The good ones are talking to three recruiters at once, and the one who feels like a live conversation wins. Four hours late reads as busy. Next morning reads as unsure, and they take the other call.
The second reason is channel. You emailed and they answered on LinkedIn, or you messaged on LinkedIn and they sent a WhatsApp at 9 pm because that is where their phone was. You saw it the next afternoon under a pile of connection requests from people selling lead lists.
They answered. It was you who went quiet, for a day.
Recruiters lose candidates to speed far more often than to salary. Salary is the reason people give afterwards because it is a clean one, but the real moment came earlier, when the candidate was waiting on you and someone else called. Your ATS already has an unread-replies tab, and it has never once rung. If a strong candidate has ever withdrawn the day after a warm reply, look at the gap between their message and yours first.
How fast should a recruiter reply to a candidate?
Within the hour if they replied to an interview or offer email, and the same day for everything else. I am not going to quote a statistic at you; every number I have seen on recruiter response time comes from a vendor with something to sell, and so do I. In our experience the hour is what counts. After that your reply becomes a task on their list rather than a conversation they are in the middle of.
Checking email more often doesn't get you to the hour, and you probably check plenty already. What works is making the two or three kinds of message that matter sound different from the rest, and leaving the rest for later. Sales people have the same problem with leads, and the same fix.
Which recruiting emails should interrupt me?
One kind: a shortlisted candidate replying to an interview or offer email. Type it as "Call me when one of these candidates replies to an interview or offer email", then paste the names from your shortlist. With Gmail connected through Google sign-in, OLL.E reads each new email for what it means rather than for a keyword, so "Thursday works, but could we do 3 instead of 2" rings your phone and a job-board digest with "interview" in the subject does not. While it rings, OLL.E drafts the reply in your tone and holds a calendar slot for the time they suggested, so the reply is waiting for your yes when you pick up. Everything else from candidates goes to the Shortlist, which stays silent, for a batch read at lunch.
How do I keep up with replies across email, LinkedIn and WhatsApp?
You watch the phone's notifications instead of the apps. "Alarm me when a shortlisted candidate messages on LinkedIn or WhatsApp" gives you an alarm rather than a call, which is about right for a message you should answer in the next ten minutes. What OLL.E sees is the notification each app puts on your phone, the same text as on the lock screen; it does not log in to LinkedIn or WhatsApp and never sees the rest of the conversation. Name the candidates and it rings for them and nobody else, including replies to InMails you sent. The action is a drafted first response along the lines of "Got it, replying properly in a few minutes". On Android it can send that through the notification's reply box once you have approved the wording; on iPhone it stays a draft you tap to send, and the watch needs the PinG keyring, which relays the notification and sounds the alarm from its own speaker.
Can my phone remind me before an interview?
Yes, louder than the calendar does. The third watch is "Call me 10 minutes before any interview on my calendar and summarise the thread", reading Google Calendar with Gmail connected. Ten minutes before the slot your phone rings, and OLL.E sends a short summary: who the candidate is, what the invite says, and what your last few emails covered, so you walk in remembering they asked about remote work and you said you would check. It also tells you when the candidate moves or cancels.
Now the limits.
OLL.E does not read your ATS. If a candidate replies inside Greenhouse, Lever, Workable or whatever you run, OLL.E knows only if that system emails you. LinkedIn reaches it only as a phone notification, so with LinkedIn notifications off it sees nothing, and the same goes for WhatsApp. If you use LinkedIn Recruiter, make sure its messages also notify your phone. The Free plan's 10 alerts a month also go quickly if three watches ring through a busy hiring week.
All three watches run in OLL.E, the app we make. You type what should interrupt you in ordinary words, and it phones you or sounds an alarm when a candidate reply, message or interview matches, with a reply drafted or the thread summarised. It does not replace your ATS or log in to LinkedIn. The free plan holds these three watches, though only 10 alerts a month; a hiring push will want Pro, $19.99 a month with a 7-day trial. On iPhone the Gmail and Calendar watches work fully; the LinkedIn and WhatsApp watch needs PinG, bought on its own.
Questions people ask
Why do candidates go quiet after replying?
Usually because another recruiter answered them first, or because they replied on a channel you were not watching. A shortlisted candidate who hears nothing for a day reads the silence as a maybe and takes the other call. In our experience it is how fast someone answered, that loses them.
How fast should a recruiter reply to a candidate?
Within the hour for a reply to an interview or offer email, and the same day for anything else. Candidates who are talking to several recruiters tend to go with whoever kept the conversation moving. Make those replies ring your phone rather than checking your inbox more often.
Can OLL.E watch LinkedIn messages for a recruiter?
Only through the notification LinkedIn puts on your phone. OLL.E does not log in to LinkedIn, so it sees the message text on the lock screen and nothing else, and if LinkedIn notifications are off it sees nothing. On Android this works out of the box; on iPhone it needs the PinG keyring.
Does OLL.E work with my ATS?
No. OLL.E does not read Greenhouse, Lever, Workable or any other ATS. It knows about a candidate reply inside the ATS only if that system emails you, through the Gmail watch, so it covers more of your day if your candidate conversations run through Gmail and your phone.