Note: This section is limited to users of RecruitBot Complete (included email outreach in the Premium subscription, may or may not be included in your trial account).
Okay, we've spent a bit of time on searching, rating and qualifying candidates, so now you have a queue of candidates to reach out to. Now we're going to dive into crafting amazing drip campaigns to send via our automated email system, because the heart of getting great talent is the messaging you're sending.
We all get lots of terrible emails every day. Bad grammar, poor spelleng (yes, that was intentional), crazy subject lines--so our goal is to help you create an email campaign that stands out so you get great open and response rates.
You're probably wondering what the secret sauce is. Well, there isn't a secret. Write quality emails that appeal to the candidate on a personal level, highlighting their skills, experience, and why they should move to a new career. Crazy, huh?
Here at RecruitBot, we've compiled lots of data around how many emails to send in an automated email campaign, how many days apart to send, what are the best subject lines, etc., but to tell the truth, there is not a single answer that fits every position or group of candidates. Truck drivers are going to respond differently to an email than a software developer or CEO will. Write your email content to fit your audience.
However, there are some consistencies we can pass along, and here they are:
Use personal language in your emails and subject lines
Send at least 3 emails in your email sequence
Space them at least 2-3 days apart
Give the candidates a quick way to book a meeting/chat with you via a Calendly link
Use the emails to start a conversation, don't overload them with too much info
Creating your email campaigns is easy. You can use one of our templates (which are pretty basic), or, create your own. If you've got existing email content that's successful, feel free to create your own campaign and nail those response rates!
Let's get started building your first automated email campaign, and then move to sending outreach.
Quick Links:
NOTE: Sending emails via RecruitBot first requires linking your email (Gmail or Microsoft) - here's a short article explaining how to do this.
Creating Amazing Email Campaigns
First, click into the 'Campaigns' section on the left side of RecruitBot.
Depending on if you used the AI-generated job position link or the position text at the beginning, you'll either see several default templates or, you'll see a new, AI-generated email campaign waiting for your review:
Just click on any campaign with the AI tag on it, and you can quickly edit/refine using AI (full guide to editing using AI).
Or, click on 'New Campaign' to start building your own, new campaign.
Campaign Name
Creating a new email campaign now gives you the ability to add in either a Job Description, paste in the text of a position, or, leave it blank and start with your content. You can also drop in a URL for your job position from an online source, and RecruitBot will use AI to generate it automatically!
Creating a New Campaign
If you're creating a new campaign, you'll see a blank slate for you to start creating an amazing email template. Your email campaign, shown on the left panel, will allow you to paste in your own content, or use AI on the right side to generate a custom campaign.
Send Now or Later
The default for the first email in the automated sequence is to 'send now', or when you click the 'Send' button. You can delay or schedule this first email, and the whole campaign, by clicking the 'Schedule to send later' link and then changing the specific day or days until the email is sent--pretty cool!
Email Content and Subjects
As we mentioned at the beginning of this section, it's not easy to create bespoke automated email campaigns with multiple drips that get great open and response rates. With the advent of tech like ChatGPT and AI, we recommend using powerful free tools to create your campaigns for you. Check out our article on leveraging ChatGPT to write your email campaigns.
Candidate Variables
Instead of having to type the candidates name, their company, etc., each time, we take care of that for you with variables. There are several variables you can add, and there's a handy button at the bottom you can click to add them directly into the email or any subsequent drips. Here's the list:
{{candidate_firstname}} - the candidates' first name
{{sender_firstname}} - the first name of the person sending the email (usually, that's you)
{{candidate_position}} - the position of the candidate in their CURRENT job
{{candidate_company}} - the candidates' CURRENT company they work for
{{unsubscribe_link}} - link the candidate can use to immediately unsubscribe to subsequent emails/drips
Under the "A" button is where you'll find various formatting options, such as adding a link, font styling or bullet points/numbered list.
Second, third, and subsequent drips
Now that we've locked in the details for the first email of the sequence, let's look at the second, third (and maybe more) emails.
Under the 'send in XX days', you can click the up or down arrow to adjust the cadence, or number of days between each email, or drip. Completely up to you when you'd like to scheduled your emails. 1 day apart, 3 days apart, or mix it up and set the drips to difference cadences!
As Reply
The default setting is to send each follow-up email as a 'reply' to the first, so it shows up in most email readers as threaded, or joined with the other emails, along with the same subject line as a reply. If you want each drip to be separate, turn this off and you can change the subject line to be different for each drip.
Remove or add a drip?
If you want to remove a drip from the sequence, click the 'X' next to remove in order to delete it. If you want to add another drip, click the "Add Another Drip" button at the bottom. You can have up to 10 drips in an email sequence, spaced at whatever cadence/number of days apart you'd like--it's yours to customize!
Another tip if you're looking to boost your response and conversion rates--add a clickable Calendly link! RecruitBot has an integration with Calendly, so candidates can one click-and-book with you, it's that easy! Just add your unique Calendly link in each email drip, and when candidates book with you, it will be counted as a candidate response, and you don't have to do anything!
When you've completed editing your email campaign, click save at the top. We recommend changing up the name of the email campaign and personalize it to be yours.
Now that we've created/edited your email campaign, let's get to sending outreach.
Email Signatures:
You might wonder if your typical email signatures are supported via RecruitBot, and the answer is 'kind of'. You CAN add in a text based signature, with your LI profile URL, a link to your calendar, name, title, etc, but you aren't able to add images/links/videos to your signature. We do this in order to improve email deliverability--and typically sending images, videos or links in emails reduce your email deliverability chances.
Sending Outreach
The first question to be answered is--are you reaching out to candidates in bulk or sending individual emails? Well, it depends. Or, you can mix it up and do both! Bulk outreach saves you time, money and makes you more efficient, but it can be less personal and give a lower response rate. Individual outreach can be highly personal, but more time consuming, so it's really up to you. RecruitBot gives you the option to conduct your outreach how you'd like.
For this guide, we'll touch on bulk outreach, but the process for sending to individual candidates is nearly the same.
To start sending outreach, we'll assume that you've added candidates to your qualified/short-list, and are ready to start reaching out.
Head to your qualified section by clicking into it on the left side.
Then, bulk select candidates by clicking the 'Select All' checkbox on the top, or, choose multiple candidates by clicking the checkbox next to their name. In this example, we've chosen the 'Select All' and are selecting 50 candidates.
Then, click the 'Reach Out' button on the right panel.
In the outreach panel on the right, you'll now get to choose which email campaign you'd like to use. In the prior step, we used the 'Example Campaign', so let's click it now.
Review that the email content, candidate variables and day/cadence sequences are correct, and if they aren't, you can edit the email campaign here before you click to send.
If you're happy with the way the emails look, then click 'Send' at the bottom and your first email starts sending within minutes. This email sequence is automatic--RecruitBot takes care of sending the follow up emails, and if the candidate replies or opts out, we don't send them another email. Literally just sit back and wait for candidates to respond!
After clicking to send your outreach campaign, we'll show you the progress of your sent emails, and break down how many were successfully sent, and how many weren't successful (due to a bad email, or an unverified email at the time we tried to send outreach). Then, you can click the 'View Reaching Out' to view your current, in-progress emails, or click to view any 'Unsuccessful' to view any candidates you couldn't reach out to.
Now that you've sent your first email outreach campaign, let's explore some advanced topics--outreach analytics, the LinkedIn Chrome Extension for RecruitBot and ATS integrations.