The Perfect Candidate Outreach Strategy | Best Practice

A successful candidate outreach strategy promotes engagement and loyalty and helps to build a better relationship with candidates. Outreach strategies are effective in maximizing recruitment ROI. So to attract, retain, and motivate top talent, you need a perfect candidate outreach strategy. Here are the best practices recruiters and talent acquisition specialists follow to plan their candidate outreach and build a talent pipeline.

Candidate Outreach Best Practice

Before we talk about candidate outreach best practices, let’s understand what candidate outreach is. When a recruiter establishes some form of contact with prospective candidates to make them aware of the vacancies and how they are well-suited to apply for such a role, it is called candidate outreach. Reaching out to candidates involves contacting them through emails, messages, newsletters, etc. These messages can be personalized or tailored to appeal to individuals based on their skills and preferences.

The candidate outreach process can take a lot of time and effort, and many recruiters do not have time to send personalized messages to all potential candidates. But in doing so, they may risk losing the candidates or their interest in the roles offered. Hence candidate outreach is a highly significant part of the talent acquisition strategy, which recruiters must not ignore. Outsourcing your talent sourcing requirements is a great way to take care of your candidate outreach strategy and also help you build a talent pipeline.

8 Candidate Outreach Best Practice for Talent Sourcing

1. Personalized messages

Your messages must make the candidate feel like they are the one for this role. So avoid sending generic messages while reaching out to potential candidates. Instead, send an email with a personalized message that helps to build relationships. Although personalized messages take more time than generic emails, they are highly likely to get a better response rate from candidates. You should avoid sending bulk emails or generic messages as they are easy to spot and can be a turn-off. Generic emails may disconnect or disengage candidates in specialized positions. 

2. Short and relevant messages

Successful outreach is one where the messages are not only personalized but hold relevance for the candidate. It will ensure that the responses you get to your outreach emails are actionable and relevant. A thoughtful outreach message considers the candidate’s career goals. So even if the candidate is not interested in the current opportunity, they can serve as a referral for the future and help build a talent pipeline.

The outreach message should neither be too long nor too short. While longer messages may be a turn-off for many candidates, terse ones could appear to be email templates and miss out on the personalized tone. Carefully draft outreach messages which include just the right amount of information about the role, alignment with the candidate’s career goals, and a clear call to action.

3. Foster a conversation

Communications with prospective candidates are like marketing opportunities. Therefore, fostering a positive conversation with your outreach messages during talent sourcing is important. The communication should highlight the company’s culture and showcase what it is like to be working with you. Conversations may also include recent industry insights, testimonials from recent hires, and questions for your audience.

4. Choose the perfect subject line

You need to create an optimal subject line to improve your outreach communication, recruitment ROI and maximize your email open rates. It is best to keep it under nine words and use language diversity and personalization. You should pay close attention to the use of pronouns and numbers in your subject line, be honest and make sure that it conveys the meaning and importance of your messaging.

5. Include a call to action

Candidate outreach emails must contain clear instructions on what to do next. The call to action must be crystal clear if you don’t want to lose potential candidates. A well-defined call to action could be a direct link to the company career page, a request to respond directly to the email, or a phone number for them to call on.

6. Follow up with candidates

A follow-up to every outreach email or message you send to potential candidates is imperative. Emails often land up in the junk folder, or the candidate forgets to reply or respond to your messages. A follow-up with a simple reminder asking if they received your previous message goes a long way in getting the conversation started.

7. Communicate to stay in touch

Most candidates will be happy to stay in touch and receive emails from time to time just to keep their future options open. Continuous communication is a great way to build the talent pipeline and keep those candidates engaged who may not be interested in an existing vacancy but wish to consider options in the future. Depending on your outreach strategy, you may cultivate the relationship with potential candidates through simple messages from time to time or through calls.

8. Build a talent pipeline

Nurturing the talent pipeline is essential for an effective and productive recruitment process. A good candidate outreach strategy includes regular communication with the talented prospects in your pipeline. It is vital to build a positive brand image for the company and staying in touch with the candidates through newsletters and social media. Newsletters can be used to communicate about the current and future vacancies, company news and discussions on company social media accounts to improve engagement and build on company image.

Aanchal Jain

Originally published Apr 29, 2022 08:04:18, updated Dec 13 2024

Topics: Candidate Outreach, Candidate Sourcing, Talent Management, Talent Pipeline, Talent Sourcing