17 Email Tips

Every Sourcer Needs

When it comes to sourcing and nurturing the very best candidates, it can be hard finding experts who are willing to share their secret sauce to improving email open rates. What works? What doesn’t work? And how can you really get hard-to-reach talent to read your messages?

In a market that’s constantly changing, it’s critical you keep an open mind and experiment with different outreach tactics. And while it’d be easier if you had a proven set of rules to guide you, the reality is, nurturing strong talent takes time and a willingness to test, test, and test again.

At Lever, we’re blessed to work with companies who are raising the bar on talent acquisition and we learn from them all the time. That’s why we made this list of 17 email nurture tips every sourcer needs in the year ahead. See what stands out to you and give it a try!

1. Send more than 2 emails

Lever data shows that of those candidates who respond, 99% do so by the third email sent.

2. Use humor

3. Share what’s working with your team

4. NEVER use the same subject line

According to Convince and Convert, 35% of talent open emails based on subject line alone.

5. ALWAYS talk about the company’s unique culture

6. ALWAYS research where candidates can network or find out about the latest trends

7. NEVER approach candidates with only the intent to hire them

“Don’t always engage with the intent of hiring the candidate. But always try to remain top of mind.” -Roger Hughes, Senior Recruiter at LinkedIn

8. ALWAYS use a call to action

The best messages are clear and have a strong call to action (CTA). Just because you’re writing recruiting emails doesn’t mean you can’t use marketing best practices!

Tip: Don’t spray and pray. Instead, create custom nurture tracks to target your strongest candidates.

Tip: A/B test subject lines for length, personalization, industry-relevant keywords, etc.

Tip: Reach out for referrals and connect on LinkedIn. See 15 more ideas here.

Don’t ever stop evolving your strategy and leveraging top tips to guide your way! Your audience will thank you for sending compelling messages that resonate with them by opening and reading them. And when in doubt, remember: leverage your data to reuse, recycle, and repurpose great content that is working.

Tip from Shopify

Tips When Sourcing Engineering Talent Engineers respond to InMails at an even lower rate than the wider talent pool that you might be hiring for. We turned to experts who’ve achieved above benchmark response rates when recruiting engineers to see what they’re must-break rules are.

9. NEVER use “awesome job opportunity” in the subject line

10. ALWAYS include details about the role and/or team

11. ALWAYS do homework on the candidate

12. NEVER describe yourself and the company at length

13. TRY sending on behalf of hiring managers

14. TRY using video

52% response rate from engineering talent

— Piret Luts, Head of International Talent Acquisition at Nortal

15. ALWAYS share technical details

50% response rate from engineering talent

— Krystle Olson, Talent Acquisition Research and Insights Lead at Shopify

16. ALWAYS send targeted emails and NEVER rely on mass email marketing

63% response rate from engineering talent

— Sofia Broberger, Tech Recruiter at Bonnier Broadcasting

17. ALWAYS highlight your tech stack and the challenging problems candidates will be solving