How Can You Manage Your First Contact With A Prospect?

Discover how to improve your engagement with your candidates.

‍Once you have an open position, the next step is to reach out to prospective candidates. That means sending emails or messages, and perhaps making calls. But this process is often inefficient and time-consuming. Fortunately, it can be improved.

1. Personalize

Top talents may receive dozens of job offers in a single month. They simply don’t have the time to consider each and every one of them. And they are likely aware of the possibility that they are part of a larger contact list. As such, they may pay little attention to a large number of their incoming messages. Arthur, a CTO at a Singapore-based startup, confirms this fact: “Every week someone offers a new job somewhere, but every week I get the same message. I know that I can’t take most of them seriously and that I need to focus on other things”. To face this challenge, it is important to personalize your outreach messages. Certainly, it takes time, but in this case, time spent is time saved.

Personalization is not difficult. The key is to begin with fresh and exciting content about the job and the company -- that is to say, the candidate must feel that your company exists and that it is eager to welcome them. Perhaps include a photo or video about the company or job position to help them understand what you have to offer. Then shift the focus to the candidate themselves by drawing a connection between the position and their own experiences. A quick visit to their LinkedIn profile is all it takes to make the candidate feel that someone has made an effort to learn more about who they are and what they are searching for.

2. Be prepared

Candidates often feel that recruiters don’t actually know what they do. For example Jessica, a data analyst in London, shared her experience with us: “A recruiter contacted me about a network administrator position. The problem is that he asked me so many questions which were not related to my work or to the position. At the end of the phone call, we were just not able to communicate. It was a pity.”

Take the time to master your position and understand the candidate you want for it; make this apparent in the very first message. When you are talking with your candidate, try to dig a little deeper.

3. Enlarge your offer

To engage the candidate throughout the recruitment process, give them a reason to be excited. A job offer can be as boring or as interesting as you want it to be. Try to show the candidate that it is more than just a position, but a new life and a new opportunity to grow with a great company. To do this, you can explain a little more about how the candidate will be a crucial component of the company’s culture, and you can illustrate this point with photos of the work environment in which the candidate will work. Arthur explains: “The recruiter was very nice. He explained to me with sincerity what my tasks would be, and above all, he showed that I would have an important role in company. It was great and it gave me a reason to be there.”

4. Change your channel

Everything changes and the recruitment industry is no exception. Recruiters must adapt the way they contact people. Today, calling candidates directly can even be counterproductive. People often do not answer unknown phone numbers or are simply too busy. In fact, calling directly might even deter the candidate.

LinkedIn is perhaps the most promising first step in today’s recruitment landscape. This is where more than 80% of first contacts happen now. But remember, this is just the first step.

5. Keep all of your contacts up to date

It happens more often than it should: interested candidates lose touch with their recruiters. Perhaps the position was filled or the candidate did not meet some of the basic requirements. Maybe the recruiter simply misplaced their candidate’s contact information. Either way, the outcome is the same for the candidate.

This may be the easiest and most detrimental way of cutting ties with potential long-term contacts. The smartest strategy by far is to keep everyone in the loop, regardless of the outcome for a particular job. ATS solutions provide great tools for this including email scheduling. This way, you can easily satisfy everyone.

A little extra effort for better and more engaged candidates. Is it worth your time? You be the judge.