Over the course of your career, it’s likely you’ve received generic recruiting emails about jobs that have no connection to your interests or field of work.
And although you might have read the email in full, you probably didn’t respond to it at all. But as a recruiter, you expect every candidate you engage with to respond to YOUR emails. With COVID-19 having a huge impact on workers and unemployment levels across the globe, now is the ideal time to perfect your email outreach. So how do you get them to actually respond?
5 ways to get candidates to respond to your recruiting emails
Email is a great tool in your hiring toolbox due to its ability to be personalized but it also can play into your recruiting automation strategy. Over one third of email recipients open emails based on creative headlines. If you nail your headline, you’re likely to at least boost your open rate – even if the recipient doesn’t actually reply. But you’re here to learn how to get them to open, respond, and engage with your emails. Let’s explore a couple of innovative ways to get candidates to read and respond to your recruiting emails!
1. Be overly specific in your email subject headers
If you’re recruiting for a role that has many subsets (e.g. software development or CMS development), it would be in your best interest to let the recipient know off the bat what type of developer you’re hiring for. You’ll pique readers’ interests with specific, catchy headers.
This subject header:
Contract-to-Hire Jr. Software Developer (C, C++ Experience Required) Role
…is a lot more specific and engaging than this one:
Now Hiring Experienced Software Developers for Tech Company!
Sure, you might want to cast a wider net and reel people in who might not necessarily have the exact experience the role is hiring for. But this can backfire.
By the time someone opens the email and reads the details of the job description, if they discover it’s out of their breadth of knowledge, you’ve just wasted the candidate’s time and made them mad. If anything, they won’t respond, but they might trash your email – or worse – send it to spam. Don’t risk making someone mad with few details; give as much detail as possible within the limits of an email subject header.
Plus, with over 144.8 billion emails sent per day, it’s likely that the candidate you’re reaching out to has an overstuffed inbox. You want to stand out in any way possible, and good subject lines will absolutely do that for you.
2. Don’t mass email a bunch of people from the same company
While it may be easy to send a mass email (or a series of emails outlining the role you’re trying to fill) to viable candidates at the same company, don’t do it- you’re not likely to find the most qualified candidate. If you’re hiring for one content writer and you email seven potential fits from the same company, they will definitely talk about you and your company in a negative manner, and possibly spread their experience being hassled by the same recruiter for the same job at the same time.
You might find that these people are all a great fit for your job, but to err on the side of caution, make sure you find the absolute best candidate to reach out to – the one who fits your requirements to a T – and wait for them to engage with you. If you see that they’ve either never opened your email, or opened and read it without replying, then you can feel free to reach out to another viable candidate from their team. But don’t reach out to all of them at the same time. That’s a surefire way to waste your time sending seven emails that will never be read. Well-chosen HR tools can help you avoid errors like this by keeping track of candidates as well as unifying the process of job posting, screening, assessing, and video interviewing. This saves you time, enhances your productivity, and eliminates headaches.
3. Gauge the candidate’s interest before sending out a long email
If you want any chance for your email to be read, make sure that the candidate is interested first. A good way to do this is to either reach out on social media (i.e. LinkedIn) or send an email that tests the waters before you fully dive in.
A few good indicators that the person will read and reply to your email is if they are actively job hunting. If you reach out to somebody who has recently been given a promotion at their current job and who doesn’t have “open to recruiters” listed on their LinkedIn, you are less likely to encourage them to engage with you.
Plus, candidates are more likely to respond to your cold recruiting emails if you’re reaching out to the right people. Why waste your time crafting the best email around for someone to either never open it or to open and delete it without responding? Save your best email for second – not first.
4. Personalize it – but not in a creepy way
In the same vein that you wouldn’t respond to a cold recruitment email that missed the mark about who you are and the type of job you’re looking for, you probably wouldn’t respond to one that mentions your full first and last name, job title, city, and other personal details about who they are.
But if you do a little digging on their public social media profiles (LinkedIn or Twitter work best), you might be able to gauge a bit about their personality and use it to their advantage in a highly-personalized email. If their Twitter account is full of dog photos, you might be able to reel them in with a cute dog GIF at the end of your email, which could be the extra push for them replying to you rather than trashing your message.
Conversely, you don’t want to reveal too much about how you came across their accounts (or look like you’ve been stalking them), so a simpler, less awkward way to personalize your cold recruitment emails is to:
- Use their first name – and spell it correctly!
- Make sure you actually know what field they work in
- Target a candidate that fits the required level of expertise
- Speak informally, but with ample knowledge about the role in question
5. Give your candidate multiple ways to reply to you
Plain and simple, some people just don’t like email. Whether their inbox has an overflow of 5,425 unread messages or they don’t like reading and writing with someone back-and-forth, give them different ways to reach back out to you. Encourage them to call you by leaving your number. Encourage them to hop on a video interview to talk details with a calendar link they can easily click on.
Basically, let them choose the method and the time so that you can give them options and make them feel a greater part of the process. If you start off saying that you’re unavailable at X, Y, and Z time, but that’s the only time they have free, you’ve already ended the relationship before it can begin. Offering your full, open calendar leaves them in control of their own destiny. And who doesn’t like being in control?
Recruiting email template
Here’s an email template you can use in your recruiting strategy to reach out to and engage with any candidate!
Email subject line: Seeking candidate for [JOB TITLE/ROLE TYPE] at [COMPANY NAME]
Email body:
Hey [CANDIDATE NAME],
Hope you’re having a fantastic [DAY OF THE WEEK]! I came across your profile on [LINKEDIN/JOB SEARCH SITE/SOCIAL MEDIA SITE] and wanted to reach out with an excellent opportunity I think you’d love!
I work at/for [X COMPANY/X RECRUITMENT AGENCY] and I’d be excited to talk to you about our opening for a [X ROLE]. Your background in [THEIR CURRENT ROLE/PAST EXPERIENCE] is an excellent fit for this job, and we’re looking for only the best candidate to join our [ADJECTIVE] team.
Would you be open to chatting about this role in more detail? If so, let’s connect sometime this week to discuss it further!
You can reach me by phone [PHONE NUMBER], email, or by setting up a time on my calendar here [CALENDAR LINK].
Looking forward to connecting soon!
Best,
[YOUR NAME + ROLE TITLE]
——
And here’s a filled in version so you can get a better feel of how the email might read:
Email subject line: Seeking candidate for SEO Specialist at TechZoneUSA
Email body:
Hey Amanda,
Hope you’re having a fantastic Tuesday – I’m looking forward to some tacos tonight! I came across your profile on LinkedIn and wanted to reach out with an excellent opportunity I think you’d love!
I work for TechZoneUSA and I’d be excited to talk to you about our opening for an SEO Specialist on our Marketing team! Your background in Content Marketing and SEO is an excellent fit for this job, and we’re looking for only the best candidate to join our fast-scaling team.
Would you be open to chatting about this role in more detail? If so, let’s connect sometime this week to discuss it further!
You can reach me by phone 555-123-4567, email, or by setting up a time on my calendar.
Looking forward to connecting soon!
Best,
Jason Jones, Talent Recruiter
****
Guest Post Written by Rebecca Reynoso
BIO: Rebecca Reynoso is the Content Editor on the marketing team at G2. She often writes about artificial intelligence, chatbots, and other high tech and marketing content.
