There are innumerable ways to communicate with actively job-seeking candidates but how do you tap into a talent pool full of passive candidates?
According to LinkedIn, 70% of candidates are passive and only 30% are in search of a job.
This makes life much more difficult for you because you need to be able not just tofind a candidate, but also to get them interested in the position.
An effective cold email is your best friend here!
Here we have prepared 5 actionable tips on writing professional cold emails for recruiting.
Cold Emails: What is the Difference Between Warm & Cold Emails?
The only difference is that it involves selling a job instead of a product.
If in sales there are cold and warm calls, then in recruiting there are cold and warm emails.
The main difference between a cold and a warm email is that we send the latter to candidates who have already applied for the job and are interested in the position.
A cold email is sent to a candidate who is either not looking for a job or is not interested in a particular job posting.
This situation is more complicated because only one party (you and your hiring manager) is interested in the collaboration. This means the job has to be marketed well and literally sold.
An effective cold email copy helps attract a candidate’s attention and get a positive response.
Read more: Recruiters can now improve their email productivity & management with these simple tricks and tools.
2 Main Types of Cold Emails
1. Personalized Cold Emails
Personalized cold emails are difficult to write, as you need to research the candidate on their social networks, see the projects they have worked on, learn about their accomplishments, and match this data with your job opening.
Personalized emails usually have a higher response rate.
Evergage did a study in which they asked marketers if they agreed that personalization helps improve the customer relationship and 96% agreed!
It’s the same in recruiting. Personalized emails don’t feel like spam and increase conversion and candidate loyalty.
2. Non-Personalized Cold Emails
Writing a personalized email takes a lot of time that a recruiter can’t always spare.
Non-personalized or generic emails are a great option for finding candidates for high-volume recruiting and junior positions.
Bonus tip: 40+ best recruiting email templates: A complete list for use by recruiters in 2022.
5 Practical Tips on Professional Cold Emailing for Recruiting
According to Open View Partners, only 20-25% of candidates respond to recruiters’ offers.
However, with a little effort, you can increase a passive candidate’s email response rate to almost 65%.
But how?
1. Select the Right Candidates
Who you send emails to will determine the success of your recruitment efforts.
Emailing everyone you can is not a good idea because it is inefficient and a direct route to spam.
If you have the time, it’s best to compile your lists of potential candidates through LinkedIn or GitHub.
When you’re compiling, find something you have in common. Perhaps you read the same public forum or like similar publications.
This will increase the chance that your email won’t get lost in their inbox.
Read more: 10 candidate sourcing strategies that recruiters can use this season.
2. Structure the Content Properly
When crafting your message, pay attention to 5 key factors:
- The sender’s name
Make your communication more human. Candidates are likelier to open your email if you introduce yourself by your name rather than your company name. Using an html email signature to create a personalized signature at the bottom of your emails will increase the chances of a higher reply rate.
- Subject line
It’s optimal to have a subject line of 2-6 words, such as “QA Engineer Job Vacancy”. Plus, most candidates check email from a smartphone, where long subjects are cut off.
- Clarity
Don’t write long emails with a big description of who your client is and that they are a clear leader in digital technology. Briefly mention who you are looking for and the offer you have to make.
- Personalize
Address the candidate by name and include the city where specialists are needed. This affects the openability of emails and ensures positive results.
- Spamming
Don’t write stop words like “MAKE MILLIONS”, “incredible career opportunity”, etc. in the subject line.
- Call-to-action
It’s very important to encourage a person to take action in an email. You should tell them what to do if they are interested in your vacancy, and leave a point of contact.
For example: “I would like to discuss this in further detail over a phone conversation or a face-to-face meeting. Let me know if you are interested in our job.”
3. Pay Attention to How You Address the Person
When addressing a person, it is important to understand which generation they belong to.
If your email is for a representative of generation X, it is reasonable to address him: “Hello, Alex Wood”.
If you are looking for candidates of generation Y or Z, you can address them less formally: “Good afternoon, Alex.
4. Read Your Email Before You Send it
The text should be free of grammatical errors, stamps, and clericalisms.
We recommend using the Hemingway app to check the text for extra words and Grammarly to check spellings.
Apart from checking for plagiarism and grammatical errors while re-reading and reviewing t
he email, make sure to check the tonality of the email too.
5. Use a Chain of Cold Emails
This method is often used in several marketing activities.
It involves sending emails to users, depending on their behavior. It can be used in any business to promote its product.
Recruiting is no exception.
To reduce manual work, you can use automation tools to streamline the sequences.
a. Offer
The first message in a chain of cold emails is the job offer itself.
Thus, it’s important to compose it correctly, adhering to the tips discussed.
Be sure to include the subject line, address the person by name, and describe how you found them and why they are of interest to you.
Describe the company, the position, and its objectives.
You can make a call-to-action in the offer message, but avoid being too pushy, so that the candidate doesn’t feel pressured.
b. If you don’t hear back
You should send a second email to remind them.
Introduce yourself and say that you have already sent an email with an offer and duplicate the information from the first message.
Important: Do not blame the person for not responding, even if they are not interested in your business proposal.
c. If you received a negative response
Of course, receiving rejections is not nice, but it’s better than writing one-way emails and not getting any responses.
In this case, you should thank the candidate for the attention he or she gave you, agree to keep in touch, and indicate that you will be happy to cooperate with them in the future.
In addition, you can discreetly ask the candidate for recommendations of professionals who would be suitable for your position and attach a link to the job again.
d. If the candidate has expressed interest
Let the candidate know that you’re really happy to hear back positively and offer several options for them to contact.
This way you will focus their attention on one action and then continue to communicate about the offer.
Read more: Sample cold calling scripts for recruiters: It’s time to use these to build up your cold calling efforts.
In Final Words
To bring out the best results while sending cold emails, you’ll have to research your target audience, analyze the reputation of your client and prepare a cold email that will hook the candidate on the first go.
Written by–
Stacey Wonders is a content marketing specialist at Essay Writers service who enjoys sharing best practices for writing tips and careers with others. In her free time, she is fond of contemporary dance and classic French movies.
