Recruiting Email Templates to Attract the Best Talent

Name: Pipefy
Brand: Pipefy
Rating: 4.5 (138 reviews)

Giovanni Riva November 29, 2022

Nearly three-quarters of job candidates today aren’t actively looking for a job, but are open to hearing about a position if the right fit comes their way.

Some of these passive job seekers are top-tier talent. Because top candidates only stay on the market for about 10 days before someone hires them, you need to find a way to get their attention and do it fast.

When reaching out to these potential candidates, it’s important to maintain consistent communication throughout the process. Friendly, reliable communication is important to candidates, but recruiters don’t always meet these expectations.

For many candidates, both passive and active, lack of employer responsiveness is their number-one frustration with the hiring process. Consider the fact that:

Only 47% of candidates are satisfied with employers’ abilities to set expectations about hiring communications
81% believe that more communication would improve the hiring experience
53% want communication expectations specified in the job description
33% want an automated email immediately after they apply

Job seekers want you to keep in touch, but that doesn’t mean you have to compose individual emails to each person. With effective recruiting email templates and software that can trigger these emails to send automatically, you can get the attention of the best candidates and build a top-tier team.

What Makes a Great Recruiting Email?

Writing an effective cold email to a prospective applicant is a challenging task. You have to convince them to not only open the email, but read it all the way through, seriously consider your request and respond promptly to let you know they’re interested.

Fortunately, there are a few best practices you can use to improve your chances of potential candidates following through with each step of the process.

Personalize It

People are more likely to interact with an email if it’s personalized. Consider:

Personalized email messages get 14% more click-throughs and 10% more conversions
Personalizing a subject line improves an email’s open rate by 17.6%
Segmented emails get 101% more clicks than non-segmented

Even when using recruiting email templates, you should actively try to identify opportunities where you can drop in information about a candidate’s skills and background. This will be particularly important in cold recruiting emails, but you can incorporate personal data in later phases of the process as well.

Make It About Them

Make sure the content of your email is focused on the candidate. The information that helped you to personalize an email will also help you to keep the candidate at the center of your message.

Remember, you’re emailing someone who isn’t emotionally invested in your company, so don’t focus on how they can help you. Focus instead on how the opportunity can help them. Use as many “you” pronouns as possible and keep the “we” to a minimum.

Keep It Concise

Active job seekers are busy trying to find a new position. Passive job seekers already have work to keep them busy. Instead of asking everyone to fill out a lengthy application, carefully choose your call-to-action for each email.

For example, in a cold recruiting email, you’ll want to keep your ask simple. Maybe invite them to a five-minute call or ask them to fill in a brief interest form (no more than two or three questions). When the person is further along, you’ll need to ask for more, but try to keep it to one request per email, and make sure what you’re asking is appropriate to the stage of the process.

Recruiting Email Templates for All Scenarios

To impress your star candidates, you need to keep them updated on what’s happening with their applications. Have an email template ready for all situations when an application status changes.

Here are some examples to get you started.

Initial Contact

This will be your first contact point for passive candidates. Make sure they know you did your research and that you’re not spamming them. Personalization is crucial at this stage.

Hi [FirstName], we saw your profile on LinkedIn and we’re really impressed with your expertise in [skillset]. Would you be interested in using your skills on some innovative new projects? Our team is doing some cutting-edge work in [topic] that we think you’d enjoy being part of.

Invitation to Interview

Plan to send an email for each interview stage that candidates go through. One option is to have a single recruiting email template that you can adapt for multiple types of interviews across stages of the recruitment process.

If you have time, though, consider creating different templates for phone interviews, first in-person interviews and follow-ups. That way, you can integrate more details about the candidate and let them know the message is truly personal.

Hi [FirstName], thank you for your interest in [position] at [company]. You seem like a good fit and we’d like to invite you to a [type of interview]. Would you be available on [date] to [speak/meet] with us?

Request for Assignment

If your position requires candidates to complete an assignment or test, you’ll need an email to make that request.

Hi [FirstName], Thanks for taking the time to interview with us. We’d like to move your application forward, and that means asking you to complete a test project to evaluate your skills in [subject]. Details of the assessment are attached. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Rejection

No one likes being rejected, but candidates appreciate it when a company does the courtesy of notifying them when their application isn’t moving forward. Use a brief but friendly template to inform candidates that you’ve decided to go with another applicant.

Try to create a different rejection template for different stages of the process so you can add more personal details and build goodwill with your applicants. That way, if you want them to apply for a role better suited to their skillset later, they’ll already have a good impression.

Dear [FirstName], Thank you for your time in [applying/interviewing] for [position]. We’ve reviewed your qualifications and regret to inform you that we won’t be moving forward with your application. We wish you the best of luck in your career.

Offer of Employment

Your employment offer is a critical step in a person’s transition from candidate to employee. The offer email will probably be just part of a more formal offer letter, but you’ll still need to craft a message that’s warm and enthusiastic yet professional in tone.

Hi [FirstName], We’re grateful for all of your time throughout this process, and we’re excited to offer you the position of [job title]. Your offer letter is attached, and I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.

In Conclusion

Your candidate emails set the tone for the entire candidate experience and, for your successful candidate, the employee experience. You’ll want to use the best recruiting email templates to help streamline the recruitment process and ensure that every candidate has a positive experience with your company.

Make sure you integrate these templates into an easy-to-use HR recruiting system like Pipefy, which sends emails to candidates according to your specified conditions. Your applicants will appreciate the personal touches, and you’ll have a better chance of retaining your star candidates’ attention.