4 Tips on How to Create Amazing Cold Emails for Recruiting (+ templates)

The main difficulty when dealing with “cold” emails (and calls) in terms of recruiting is that people your company is interested already get a large volume of emails from other organizations. Therefore, a letter should be something to stand out from many others.

That’s why we included 4 key tips on creating kickstart cold emails for recruiting and included template samples you could customize and use in your current campaign or for A/B template testing to see yourself whether it works for you.

Tip #1: Your email should stand out

Most of the “cold” emails are generated automatically or the contents copied from other posts and replaced with only the name of the recipient. It’s highly important you include the evidence that would allow people to understand that there was some effort put into knowing them better. For example, such evidence may be a comment on professional performance on the conference, a recent corporate blog post or company achievement.

subj: Looking for the best Ruby engineer to join ABC Inc

Hi XX,

My name is Jason and I am CEO at ABC Inc. I found your profile on github while was looking for the top engineers with Ruby experience. I was impressed by your background and decided to drop a note.

You probably may not often see CEOs reaching out to potential candidates to discuss the career opportunity. But our company success so far is based on finding the best people and putting them together to work on fun, challenging and exiting projects. That is why I focus a lot of my personal time on recruiting the greatest talents for our company.

We might have a position to tell you about, but that conversation can’t begin until we listen to you first and make sure we are on the same page.

Please, let me know if you interested to learn more and I will connect you with someone from our team.

Tip #2: Don’t explain what the company does

Nowadays explanation of basic things is just a waste of time. If the interviewee is familiar with the company, he already knows what you do. If he hears about the company/project for the first time, detailed explanations simply turn your email to “another-one-looking-completely-similar” to all those already sent to the trash. If you’re not sure whether the candidate knows your brand, you can simply include several words about what your company deals with or just indicate the area of industry. That will be completely enough.

subj: Love your ABC, XYZ projects on github

Hey {FirstName},

I’m an engineer at Stripe. I came across your github profile, and really liked your ABC, XYZ projects. I wanted to see if you’d be interested in working with us at Stripe — if you’re up for it, I’d love to grab coffee next week to chat.

Best regards,
Alan

Tip #3: Your main goal is to schedule a call/meeting

Any verbal communication is still considered to be much more effective than even the most informative correspondence. In case of hiring a prospective candidate the situation is the same, so the message should entail just enough information so that the recipient agrees to meet or jump on a call.

subj: New career opportunity

Hi {FirstName},

I know a little bit about your background and had some ideas in mind. However, I work differently, and if you are open to chatting I’d like to begin with a dialogue instead of a pitch selling you a job. We might have a position to tell you about, but that conversation can’t begin until we listen to you first and make sure we are on the same page.

I realize that my email may or may not have arrived at the right time. However, my goal is to connect with and understand an outstanding individual’s professional frustrations/aspirations, and then align those needs with the startup that can best fit or help achieve that person’s goals.

What’s the best way for us to connect?

Tip #4: Always analyze your email campaign data

Contacts with potential employees is similar to the process of sale and I’m sure that analysis of this type of communication will help you make the right conclusion and develop a script that is going to bring you the best results ever possible. If you’re using Reply, you can always see the stats for every single prospect along with detailed campaign data as well as A/B test your email templates and subject lines to improve your reply rate.