It’s a question I get asked at some point from most of the people we train: How do you find cell phone numbers? And it should be. Whether for candidates or clients, they almost certainly carry a smartphone with them all of the time. And the statistics on average open and response rates for text versus email are incredible. Only approximately 30% of emails are ever opened. And 6% are responded to.

Texting enjoys a nearly 99% open rate and a 45% response rate*. And since this is the season when we get the best information from our cell phone hunting techniques, we’ve decided to openly share a favorite technique.

It’s no secret we have the best sourcing training in the recruiting industry. In that program, we teach a URL manipulation that works upwards of 50% of the time for cell phones, using Ivycall. But we aren’t going to attempt to teach a complicated technique in this blog post. (Shameless plug: if you want to learn this technique and how to never run out of qualified candidates, send Tricia an email and she’ll walk you through the eSourcing eSSentials program. She can be reached at tricia@mooreessentials.com.)

Instead, we’re going to show you something as simple as sending an email, because when it’s timed right, it’s the only thing you need to do.

If our prospects are like most of the corporate world, they’re working partial hours or no hours through the beginning of next year. And they’ve set up an Out of Office Autoreply for their email.

It’s amazing how much of the time that autoreply has their cell number, either as a way to get in touch if it’s an emergency, or simply because it’s in their signature line. Normally, when you send an email, you are fighting the slim chance they will open it, let alone respond. It’s just 6% if you recall. But when they’re on vacation with the autoreply set up, suddenly that chance has leapt to 100%.

A sizeable portion of those will include, in some way, their mobile number or alternate method of reaching them. So from a few days before Christmas, until a few days after the New Year, you are in prime hunting season for those numbers.

Send an email to that candidate who’s never responded to you, that client who can easily dodge your calls. While the rest of the recruiting world is joining the corporate world in a much needed break, you can be sending out a series of emails designed to let you hit the ground running in the new year.

For the record, you can do this at pretty much any federal holiday for a degree of success, but the end of the year is the longest continuous period where this is a powerful trick. And it’s the holidays, so you should know, we also take a break. We forward the OOTO replies to a Virtual Assistant to have them add the cell number into our database, as well as add any new contacts included in the autoreply.

* To answer the inevitable question, first touch voicemail response rates are 1.7%.