Increase Your Recruiting Email Open Rates with These 5 Tips

Even in the age of social media, email remains to be one of the most effective recruitment tools. The key is to know how to craft a convincing message that will get top candidates responding favorably each and every time. Need some tips? You can follow this link to learn more about effective recruiting email templates that yield impressive results.

Before you get started on writing that winning email, however, you need to make sure that it gets opened. This is arguably more challenging (and more stressful to think about) than composing a good recruiting email. After all, if the candidates don’t open your email, then you’ve already missed out on a chance to hire them.

To help you overcome low open rates and click-throughs, here are some pointers that you can apply to your own recruitment emails:

Communicate the Value Early On

When you’re recruiting candidates, it means that you want something from them—i.e., their skills, their experience, their character. In short, it’s you as the recruiter or the company who will benefit when the candidate ultimately gets hired. What about them? What will they stand to gain when they choose your offer?

Thus, you need to clearly communicate what you can offer to the candidates as early as possible. Don’t wait until the body of the email; use the subject line to immediately grab the attention of the recipient and make them a proverbial offer they can’t refuse. Once they know what’s in it for them, potential recruits are more likely to open your email.

Get the Subject Line Right

Speaking of subject lines, research has shown that they’re some of the biggest factors that influence email open rates. If you don’t craft a good one, your message might not be opened. Worse, it can be flagged as spam. You definitely don’t want this to happen, especially if you want to build good professional relationships with job candidates.

Thus, it’s not enough that the subject line mentions what value a job can provide to the candidate. It should also be constructed in a way that doesn’t feel spammy or misleading. Try to pique curiosity, ask questions, or make bold statements.

It’s also a good idea to conduct A/B tests to find out which kinds of subject lines are the most effective. Take note of not just the open rates, but also the click-throughs.

Use Preview Text

The ideal length of an email subject line is 60 to 65 characters, which might feel limiting to really drive home the good points of a job. The good thing is that many popular email clients support preview text, which gives you more room to make your case right at the outset. What’s even better is that there are also many pieces of email marketing software that allow you to edit this text so that it’s different from the opening or introduction of your email.

Some of the things you can do to the preview text include creating a quick summary of the message or using a sub-heading that underscores the point of the subject line. You can also add a call to action to immediately trigger the response you want to happen.

Personalize

It’s no secret that candidates, especially the in-demand ones, receive multiple recruiting emails in a day. These are apart from other messages they get daily, which means yours could be quickly buried in an overcrowded inbox. So how do you stand out? One way to do so is to personalize.

Templates are extremely helpful in making sure that you stay consistent with your messaging. However, don’t forget to personalize each email so that it’s truly all about the candidate. Do your research and touch upon a detail that will resonate with them. Even the simple act of using the person’s first name instead of Mr., Ms., or Mx. will already make a big difference.

Use Double Opt-In

When you send recruiting emails, it’s easy to assume that a person wants to send a job application. It may be true, especially for active candidates, but they may not be interested in receiving emails in particular. Perhaps they prefer to be contacted via social media instead or even through a phone call. This is why it’s a good idea to use double opt-in.

For those unfamiliar, double opt-in in digital marketing means asking the recipient to verify if they want to receive further emails from your business. In the case of recruitment emails, consider the first email to be a quick introduction. Then, in the preview text and the body of the email, let them know that they can opt in or out of future messages. This will help ensure that those who receive your recruiting emails truly care about them; meanwhile, you can reach out to those who said “no” through their preferred methods.

Of course, the buck doesn’t stop there. After using these tips to improve your recruiting email’s open rates, you should work on improving the content. Some pointers include using video, animated GIFs, and well-taken photos. It’s also a good idea to ask for feedback from candidates, whether or not they made it to the end of the recruitment process.