Email recruiting is a tough yet highly effective strategy for engaging with potential candidates. Even though other recruitment tactics are on the rise, email remains a channel job seekers trust the most.

Both ideal and not-so-perfect candidates have to sift through dozens of emails daily. They’ve gotten fairly good at telling a high-quality message from a spam email. To get their attention, you need to create an efficient cold recruiting email template.

1. Focus on the Subject Line

You only have a few words to make a first impression. These words appear in the subject line.

Unless you manage to catch the candidate’s attention with that line, your message is likely to go to the trash folder, or worse, to spam. This can affect your email open rate, lowering the cost-efficiency of your recruitment campaign and jeopardizing your reputation.

Personalize it — personalization is highly important to boosting open rates. People are more likely to open a letter addressed specifically to them or their needs than a general message.

Use flattery — flattery is extremely effective when it comes to piquing a candidate’s interest. So consider employing phrases like “perfect candidate”, “impressive resume”, “best choice”, etc.

Make it clear — when it comes to recruitment, clarity is highly important. “Web designer needed in Atlanta” is much more efficient than “Are you looking for the best web designer position in Atlanta?”

Avoid misleading — trying to catch the recipient’s attention with tricks like “immediate action required” or “Re: Your resume” may boost your open rate. However, the message is likely to go to the trash folder as soon as the candidates realize they’ve been fooled (regardless of how good your offer is).

Add a location — adding a location to the recruitment email subject line can improve open rates.

Mention referrals — if someone referred the candidate, make sure to mention their name in the subject line.

Pay special attention to the structure of the subject line as well:

Keep it short — the shorter your subject line is, the faster it can grab the reader’s attention. Meanwhile, it will appear organic on mobile devices. Keep the length under 24 characters.

Avoid all-caps — using caps lock when writing the subject line can make it appear suspicious to ESP (email service provider) spam filters.

Cut out spam trigger words— check them against this list.

2. Do Your Research

Personalization is the key to successful passive candidate recruitment. You don’t just need to show that you’ve put some effort into searching for candidates. You should adjust the cold email template to address each recruit separately.

Use first names — “Dear Sir” emails go straight to the trash folder, no matter how catchy the subject line is.

Employ the day of the week — “Dear Anne, I hope you are having a wonderful Tuesday” can be a great opening line.

Take advantage of interests — “I have an excellent job opening in New York that comes with a golf club membership”.

Take full advantage of social media profiles that tend to have all the information you need for personalization. You can also browse freelancing platforms, such as Upwork or Freelancer to get additional insight.

When you delete the “Dear Anne” part of the email, does the rest look too general? Make sure to use the information you gathered in the rest of the body to drive the candidate’s interest.

  • Mention how you found the candidate (We studied your impressive LinkedIn profile and believe this project is perfect for your professional growth)

  • Explain what made you reach out to the candidate (“Our team has interesting {web design, writing, coding} job offering which I see you are interested in”)

Avoid over-personalization. For example, commenting on Instagram photos in the email is too personal. Keep the email template strictly professional.

3. Adjust the Sender’s Name

While the right subject line is crucial to piquing the candidate’s interest, the sender’s name is also important. According to a Litmus study, 42% consider the sender’s name before opening an email.

  • Use a recruiter’s name in addition to the company name “Judy Smith from Atlanta Recruiters” instead of simply “Atlanta Recruiters.”

  • If you still want to use a company name, consider adding “team” at the end — “Atlanta Recruitment Team.”

  • Avoid impersonal names like noreply@atlantarecruiters.com or info@atlantarecruiters.com.

  • Use the name of your top specialist as the sender’s name. Candidates may be more inclined to open an email that comes from a person than a company or person+company.

Make sure to check how the sender’s name appears on different devices since 70% of people use their mobile gadgets to check email.

4. Work on your CTA

The CTA (Call to Action) is the most important part of your template. The goal of a recruitment email is to make the candidate contact you. So keep it straight to the point. By including more than one CTA in your email, you are confusing a recipient. Instead of achieving two goals, you’ll fail to achieve any.

  • Ready to learn more?

  • What’s the best way to contact you on June 20 at 3:00 pm?

  • Let’s meet next week and chat

Consider adding some urgency to the CTA to capitalize on FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

  • The position is about to expire. Let’s talk tomorrow at 3:00 pm?

  • The competition is high. Let’s chat as soon as possible.

5. Learn When to Send Recruitment Emails

Once you have your cold recruitment email template ready, consider sending and timing tactics.

  • The best time to send a recruitment email is 6:00 am since many people check their mail as soon as they wake up. So make sure yours is on top of the list.

  • Don’t send emails more than twice a week. Too many messages may be viewed as spam.

  • Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the days with the highest open rate for emails.

Improve Your Hiring Process with an Efficient Cold Recruiting Email Template

Reaching out to candidates is similar to marketing. That’s why you have to remember to sell your offering in the most subtle yet effective manner possible.

Creating a cold email template can save your recruitment team time, money, and effort while boosting hiring rates.

To learn more tricks for creating efficient cold recruitment emails, don’t hesitate to contact us at any convenient time.