How to Avoid Candidate Email Follow-up Fails

With 156 million emails sent every single minute, we all have out-of-control inboxes, yet email is still the most common method used by recruiters to communicate with candidates, especially now that most believe the phone is dead (which it’s not).

What’s more, laziness and time restrictions have led to the rise of recruiter spam, which industry veteran Steve Levy and I can’t wait to discuss with you in our webinar on How to #FightSpam and Avoid Follow-Up Fails: Best Practices for Candidate Communication on December 1^st.

Here are just three of the topics we’ll be talking about.

Try another channel!

Because I hate the number count on unread emails, I have a tendency to read an email and flag it for follow up…then forget about it. I currently have 83 flagged emails, oops. (Sorry if yours is amongst them!)

So I get a second email, perhaps light in tone, along the lines of, “Thinking your inbox is as overloaded as mine, Katrina, I’m cheekily bringing this to the top again.”

But what about something different on the third try?

You could, you may want to sit down for this, call them. Yes, I know, it’s an old-school method, but when people answer they are choosing to do so, so make the most of it! Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean everyone doesn’t like it. I love it when people call, saves me so much time typing.

You could text them, send them a WhatsApp message, or—my favorite—send them a video on Facebook Messenger – it’s free, it’s pushed so they will see the alert, and you’ll know if they’ve accepted it or not. Did I mention it’s free?

No response is a response

There’s no denying that it may take 3 or 4 instances of outreach to gain someone’s attention… but 8? Eight is telling you that the recipient isn’t interested.

I appreciate this isn’t from a recruiter, but you’re up against this noise too. On each occasion, he forwarded the previous email to make it even more obvious that he couldn’t take a hint.

Though I think an element of persistence does work, sending 8 emails will only make you look foolish. One quick call to Wendy and Deepak would’ve achieved more.

Quit the passive aggression

Nothing gets me riled up like recruiters who think they’re entitled to a reply. Your job is not the most important thing on a candidate’s mind, so quit trying to pressure people into replying.

Demanding a reply with a curt ‘thanks’ is never acceptable no matter how life changing you may think this opportunity is.

Instead, take a moment to think about the many interruptions interactions in your own day and the stress that creates. Think about what it would take for you to change jobs, the concerns you would have. Think about what it would take for another recruiter to get your attention. Then remember that! Be respectful #BeHuman.

And for more great insight into how you can use email outreach and more to attract top talent, don’t forget to sign up for my webinar on December 1, 2017: How to #FightSpam and Avoid Follow-Up Fails: Best Practices for Candidate Communication.