Talent acquisition is difficult, and finding a hire that checks all the boxes is even more challenging. Did you know that accessing the right talent was classified by Deloitte as the biggest difficulty hiring professionals face? This is why, as a recruiter, you should ensure that your email outreach campaigns are well thought out. Think about it this way: you’re not the only one sending emails to candidates, so what will make them respond to you? Which defining feature will convince them to read the entire email? Her

Outreach marketing is all about creating and nurturing relationships with potential hires. Social media may be on the rise, but email marketing stills remains one of the most effective ways to engage candidates. If you’re looking for some quick ideas to boost your campaigns, here’s a simple guide to effective email outreach for recruiters.

1. Define Your Goals

Why exactly are you sending out the emails? Are you reaching out to a candidate for the first time? Is your email sequence a follow up of your previous emails? You need to layout the main objectives for your email outreach campaign and set the key performance indicators. Start by identifying the metrics you’re trying to improve on and by what margin. Every series of emails that you send should be guided by the goals you set.

Sample objectives include:

  • Increasing your open rate

  • Increasing your reply rate

  • Increasing the clickthrough rate

Make sure you identify what it is you’re trying to get from the candidates before blasting their inboxes.

2. Segment Your Email Lists

Are you really sending your emails to the right people? This may seem like a no-brainer, but it is shocking how easy it is to send emails to the wrong candidates. You need to compile a vetted list of candidates and segment them based on their stage in the hiring process.

The manual way of segmenting the candidates is by creating a list with the candidates’ names, accompanied by their resumes and URLs of their social profiles. A consequent column is created to highlight the stages that the candidate is in and the email status. You, however, don’t have to do that anymore; you simply have to look for a tool that will help you segment the candidates with ease.

Segmentation also makes it easier to send separate emails to different groups of candidates through email sequencing.

3. Don’t Use General Email Templates

The truth is, email templates are a massive time saver. Can you imagine how difficult it would be if you had to manually type out everyone’s emails? Now, if you have a large email, you will need different email templates. However, and this is where more hiring professionals go wrong, you should not use a generalized template. You need to tweak it to suit your brand and intended message, and treat templates as building blocks, personalizing certain elements each time.

How can you develop your own email outreach template?

  • Seek inspiration from other templates: browse various templates until you find one that is most likely to help you reach your objective.

  • Make it stand out: don’t use the template as it is. You need to make it your own by tweaking some aspects. Play around with the design, colors, subject lines, etc.

  • Test it out: here’s the trick, you need to create at least 2 variants of the email templates and then conduct a split test to identify the most effective one.

4. Personalize the Email Content

Did you know that personalized emails get 66.7% more replies than generic ones? You cannot afford to ignore email outreach personalization. It could be the difference between getting spammed and onboarding the right hire.

There’s a lot more to personalization than simply using the candidate’s names. You have to dig deeper and find out more about the candidates you’re trying to recruit.

Here are the best personalization practices:

  • Use the names they mostly use on their professional profiles. For example, if a candidate’s name is John Smith, but they often go with J. Smith, use the latter.

  • Reference one of their recent achievements. Assuming the candidate has a blog or recently received a certification, highlight it in the email! This shows that you really did your research and are interested in the candidate’s skills.

  • Offer compliments…it couldn’t hurt to acknowledge their wins.

Pro tip: before sending your outreach emails, you should try engaging with the candidate. For instance, you could comment on their blogs or LinkedIn posts. You could also try sending the mail from a high ranking member of the company.

5. Be Specific and Concise

Keep the email short and sweet! Yes, you do have a lot of information to cram into one email, but the candidate you’re reaching out to is probably engaged elsewhere. Make sure you get to the point quickly without watering down the important information. Think of it as bait: giving the potential hire just enough information to keep them coming back for more.

If you don’t get a reply, refrain from following up too many times, as you’ll just end up being spammed. We recommend three messages at most, and definitely no more than four.

6. Use Email Outreach Tools

Email outreach tools are scalable and will save you a lot of time. Interseller is an email outreach platform for recruiting teams that helps find candidates’ email addresses and make contact with them, all on the same platform. With email outreach tools, you can configure workflows, and schedule follow up emails once the candidate replies. They are like a one-stop-shop for all your email outreach needs!

Let Your Email Outreach Campaigns Stand Out

Email outreach is your one chance of grabbing a candidate’s attention, so you need to use it right. If you’re new to the game, then the above 6 ideas will boost your open rate and get you more replies. Other email outreach tips include:

  • Using first name personalization in the subject line and keep it short so it doesn’t get cut off in preview mode

  • Going through the email content to ensure there are no grammatical mistakes.

  • Add social proof in your email signatures.

We’d love to help you level up your email outreach. Get in touch with us for a free demo!