Passive Talent Outreach:

The Anatomy of a Great

Cold Recruiting Email

If you’re seeing around a 32%
reply rate to your recruiting
outreach, you’re in line with
what our customers are seeing
at Gem. 32% is great... but we
can always do better. This guide
is to help you optimize that
initial email, and increase your
response rates.
64%
of talent leaders say their team
has a formal initiative in place to
track candidate outreach
58%
of sourcers and recruiters say
they track metrics like open rates
and click rates
Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email
The 6 Essential Elements of a Cold
Outreach Email
If you’re in the business of sourcing passive talent, you’re probably also in the
business of tracking response rates to your outreach. According to a recent
Gem survey, 64% of talent leaders say their team has a formal initiative in
place to track candidate outreach, while 58% of sourcers and recruiters say
they track metrics like open rates and click rates. Indeed, the best teams are
not only tracking these stats, but also using them to discover best practices
for their outreach—from best send times, to most engaging subject lines, to
most compelling content, to the most effective number of stages and the best
cadence for an outreach sequence.
At Gem, our users see an average reply rate of 32% for a 4-stage sequence. (Gem’s data
shows that a 4-stage sequence strikes the right balance between connecting with talent and
preserving employer brand.) 32% is an achievement; but we’re constantly trying to help our
users see even better numbers, and to outperform themselves quarter-over-quarter. It’s no
small feat to prompt engagement in talent that’s content in their current roles. But the right
cold outreach template, along with a few best practices, might help create that spark with
talent who didn’t think they were looking… and you’ll see that reflected in your response rates.
On the following pages we discuss the six essential elements of a great cold outreach email
for recruiting. (Our focus is on that first email here; your follow-ups will demand different
strategies.) As you read, keep in mind that we use the word “template” loosely. You’re
reaching out to inspire a response and initiate a long-term relationship; and you know your
target candidate—what they want to hear, and how they want to hear it—better than we do.
So think of your outreach as an expression of curiosity and excitement at the possibilities—
with some structure in place—rather than a form letter.
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The Subject Line
Your outreach will be one of
120 emails your prospective
candidate receives that day. That’s
a lot of noise to cut through... so
make your subject line compelling.
Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email
Talent Can’t Respond Unless They First Open Your Email…
And you’ll only see an open if you offer them a good reason to do so. Given that your outreach
is competing with the 120 other emails your recipient will receive that day, we recommend your
subject line do at least one of the following to stand out:
Flatter the recipient. Studies have shown that even overtly manipulative flattery is remarkably
effective. That’s because compliments trigger reward centers in the brain. Subject lines that
appeal to the ego (“Are you our next top-tier data scientist?”) will leave recipients wanting more
of the resulting “mini-high,” prompting them to click in.
Personalize. This often goes hand-in-hand with flattery. Showing you did your research as early
as the subject line—by mentioning a mutual interest or a recent accomplishment (“Loved your
recent Medium article!”)—shows them they’re important enough to have done the work for. But
even mentioning prospects’ names (“Liz, are you our next VP of Sales?”) or locations can be
enough to get them to click.
Spark their curiosity. Curiosity releases dopamine, which is associated with motivation—in
this case, the motivation to clarify what is ambiguous, uncertain, or partial (“How we do things
differently at [company]”). Remember, you’re reaching out to top problem-solvers who already
possess an instinct for inquiry. So leverage that instinct.
Mention a referral or shared connection. If you have a connection, refer to it as soon as
possible. It’s an instant endorsement; it piques curiosity (see above); it gives you a jumping-off
point for conversation; and it minimizes the sense of risk associated with a career change.
Play with, and test, other strategies as well—humor, questions, appealing to values (“Want to
make an impact on healthcare in America?”). Just notice we said nothing about length. That’s
because our data shows there’s no real correlation between subject line length and open rates.
Of course, mobile clients account for 46% of all email opens; so ensure that your subject line
is short enough that prospects can see the whole of it on their phone screens (fewer than 45
characters).
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Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email

Tell Them How You Found Them… and Prove You Did
Paragraph 1*
Your Homework
Your outreach strategy begins long before you sit down to write that email. It begins with
research. That means checking out social profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. It means
*And by “paragraph,” we mean just a few
sentences!
discovering work samples online—through Dribbble if they’re designers, Medium or personal
blogs if they’re writers, GitHub if they’re engineers, and so on. Most prospective candidates
leave digital footprints in multiple places. Find them.

What’s their past and current work experience? What projects have they undertaken, and what
roles have they played in those projects? What skills do they possess? What awards have they
won? What do they do outside of work (charitable work, hobbies, side projects)? What do their
career goals—and life goals—appear to be?
Warm up your cold email by
With this information in hand, use your opening paragraph to do two simple things: 1. Introduce
explaining why you reached out
yourself and tell them how you found them; and 2. Explain why you’re sending them an email—
to them specifically about this
of all the people you could have reached out to. This is where your “cold” email starts warming up.
role. No one wants to suspect
that they’re the recipient of a
With automation, basic personalization (name, location, day of the week, job title, company)
bulk recruiting email. That’s why
can occur at scale and in bulk. At Gem, we recommend using a token at the end of your first
Gem’s {{reason}} token allows
paragraph to further customize initial outreach—especially for harder-to-fill roles. After all, the
you to personalize your outreach
further your outreach strays from the generic, the more likely you are to drive engagement.
at scale.

I’ve just spent the last hour on your GitHub and LinkedIn profiles, and
Personalization called our CTO Erika over to show her the most recent debugging
feature you published on GitHub. Needless to say, Erika’s thrilled: We’re
actually working on a similar project—and in Haskell, which it looks like
you’re programming in!

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Paragraph 2
Prospects most want to hear
these things about your open
role:
• Career trajectory
• Expectations, responsibilities,
and workload
• What “a day in the life”
looks like
In a post-COVID world, they
also want details on company
stability. Whether that means
revealing details about growth
plans or company financials,
assure prospects that they won’t
be stepping onto a sinking ship.
Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email
Tell Them Who Your Company Is, What It’s Doing, and What
Role You’re Looking to Fill
Believe it or not, this will be your shortest paragraph. If the prospect is familiar with your
organization, a company description will be superfluous. If they aren’t, a detailed explanation
will only sound like a variation of all the other company descriptions flooding their inbox. As in
marketing, a good rule of thumb is to use “you” more often than “I” or “we.” This email is about
them, after all.
Tell them your company name and, if you’re not well-known, what industry you’re in. The more
important part is how the open role supports the company’s mission and contributes to the
company as a whole. Identify 2-3 details that would appeal to their interests. (You know what
would appeal; you’ve done your research. Keep in mind that talent may want to hear different
things in a post-COVID world: What are your company values? What does company stability look
like right now?) Use strong verbs: “build,” “lead,” “define,” “reinvent.” Mention impact. Leave the
rest for them to research on their own… or to write you back and ask about.
Zen/zo is 3 years old; we just closed our Series B ($18 million);
and even with COVID, we’ve seen 100% YOY growth so far. We’re
Company & Role
undergoing an early rebrand, and we’re looking for a Brand
Marketing Manager who’d be willing to take the reins and move us in
a new direction. For the next few years, we’re focusing our business
strategy on growing our customer base, particularly through events
and paid campaigns. We’ve got some ambitious goals and a fantastic
team ready to chase them.
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Paragraph 3
Examples of EVP content include:
• A video of your female VP of sales
describing what it’s like to work
on such a gender-equitable team
• Third-party content (i.e. a recent
article about your series B funding
or your newest product feature)
• A blog post by an employee
describing their career trajectory
at your company
Link to this content directly from
your outreach. It allows talent to
dig deeper if they’re interested;
and if you’re tracking link clicks
(which you should be!), it’ll help
you observe what kinds of content
talent is most interested in.
Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email
Mention a Facet (or Two) of your Employee Value
Proposition (EVP)
Your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is the unique set of benefits employees receive in return
for the experience, skills, and other contributions they bring to your company. It’s what makes
working for you worth their time and effort. But prospects need to be convinced you’re worth
their time long before they sign that offer letter. Why would they respond to you now? What
makes you different than their current employer from the perspective of employee experience?
Whether it’s a flexible work schedule, tuition benefits, intellectual stimulation, personal
development opportunities, working with the best talent in your field, or company culture, you
probably offer quite a few things that collectively make up your EVP. As with the details of your
company, talent’s biggest concerns have shifted in 2020: How are you valuing—and acting on—
diversity, equity, and inclusion? How will they experience a sense of belonging in your company,
even in a virtual world? Don’t list everything here. Again, you’ve done your homework: mention
the elements that would be most compelling for them. If you’re reaching out to multiple people
for the same role, you might stress different elements for each person.
Ultimately, this paragraph will be answering the question—from the prospect’s point of view—
What’s in it for me? Asking yourself “so what?” at the end of every sentence will help you know
what to cut and what to keep. If the benefit isn’t self-evident, make it so. If you discover there
isn’t one, let that sentence go.
What it’s like to work on the eng team:
• No product managers. You’ll own and drive the product from start to
EVP finish.
• Tons of growth opportunity as we expand from a team of 6 to 20+ by
the end of the year.
• Write meaningful code that supports our users in experiencing
financial freedom.
• Flexible environment (even after COVID, we plan to let our team work
from home at least two days a week).
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The Call to Action
Remember: your only goal with
this outreach is to get prospects on
the phone, where you can have the
real dialogue about their career
aspirations.
Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email
Close your Outreach with a Call to Action
Even the most compelling outreach in the world is incomplete without a call to action. After all, if
your prospect doesn’t know what to do next, they’re less likely to take any action… even if you’ve
piqued their interest.
Your goal with this initial outreach should be to get prospective candidates on the phone so you
can have the real dialogue there. (If you’re asking them to send on a resume or apply for your job
online, we’d recommend a different call to action.) Tell them you want to have a conversation
about what they’d want in their next opportunity rather than pitch them a job. Tell them you want
to find out if your position is truly aligned with their aspirations. Make yourself an ally. Asking if
they’re open to hearing more about the role is a low-commitment question. So is telling them
you’d just love to learn more about them, regardless of whether this is ultimately a role they’d be
interested in.
That said, remember the likelihood that your recipient will be reading your email on their phone.
Going into their calendar and pitching you some times may be more than they’re willing to
do. One strategy worth experimenting with is to tell them when you plan to call them (“I’ll try
catching you by phone this Thursday at 1:30”), and ask them to reply only if there’s a time that’s
better for them. The less energy they have to expend, the better.
I’d love to tell you about our plan to open up a new market this year and
CTA about how we see experimentation and autonomy as central to a world-
class sales team. If that sounds interesting to you, feel free to schedule
a 30-minute intro call with someone on our TA team here. And if we
discover it’s a ring you’d like to throw your hat into, I’d love to grab a
coffee with you.
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Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email

Your Signature Should Hold All the Information Talent Needs to

The Signature
Get In Touch With You, to Learn More About the Company, and
to Get Details On the Position
Include your name and job title, and link to your LinkedIn profile so recipients can verify your
humanity. Include your pronouns (she/her, they/them, etc.) as a way of affirming your allyship
and showing that your company values diversity and inclusion. (You should display your
pronouns on your LinkedIn profile as well.) Include the name of your organization and link to
your About page or Careers page. If you’ve piqued their interest at all, your signature should
make it easy for them to find out more.

Aim for a 1-minute-or-less read

time. It helps to include bullet
points and break up the messaging
I look forward to talking to you,
into digestible paragraphs.

Signature Chris Haskins

Recruiting Manager, XYZ Financial
(he/him/his)

Keep in mind that this is your initial outreach (ideally you’ll have up to three follow-ups); so
it will contain more information than the other emails in your sequence. Still, it’s possible
to include all these elements—how you found them, why you want them, what the role is,
and what your company can offer them in return for their skills—in a message that takes less
than a minute to read. Remember, the point is to generate enough curiosity to get them to
respond. Anything more than that is probably too much.

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 Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email

Examples of Great Email Outreach

Remember, we’re using the word “template” loosely here. Though the following cold outreach examples employ
different strategies, they all have two things in common:

1 They make the recipient

feel unique and uniquely
2 They include “motivating
factors”—the elements
spoken to likely to prompt a response

Motivating factors might range from employee value propositions, to names of referrers and mutual
acquaintances, to messages directly from hiring managers or the CEO.

If you’re using Gem for outreach, you can use analytics to determine your strongest subject lines and
message content. This includes tracking which links are getting clicks—and which clicks prompt replies—
to get a sense of what your most compelling content is.

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 Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email

Flattery Subject: Looking for our next Haskell Expert in Chicago

Hi, Javier!
My name is Chris and I’m working alongside our CTO, Erika, at XYZ Financial to find some of
the best back-end engineers to grow our current team. I’ve just spent the last hour on your
GitHub and LinkedIn profiles, and called Erika over to show her the most recent debugging Flattery
feature you published on GitHub. Needless to say, Erika’s thrilled: We’re actually working on
Personalization a similar project—and in Haskell, which it looks like you’re currently programming in!
XYZ Financial is an account aggregation technology looking to make big waves in fintech.
Last year we opened our second engineering hub in Chicago, raised $47M in funding, and Company Stability
we’re on track to double in size by next year. Our next few hires will be critical, as they’ll
shape the engineering culture of our new office.
What it’s like to work on the eng team:
• No product managers. You’ll own and drive the product from start to finish.
• Tons of growth opportunity as we expand from a team of 6 to 20+ by the end of the
year.
EVP • Write meaningful code that supports our users in experiencing financial freedom.
• Flexible environment (even after COVID, we plan to let our team work from home at
least two days a week).
• Tackle technical challenges across internal tooling, guest experience, authentication,
and data.
• Work on a collaborative team of top developers who are forward-thinking, creative, and
product-focused.
Do you have time to jump on a call this week? I’d love to hear more about your background, Call to Action
your current projects, and your career aspirations... and of course, tell you more about our
company.
I look forward to talking to you,
Signature Chris Haskins
Recruiting Manager, XYZ Financial
(he/him/his)

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 Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email

Sparking Curiosity Subject: What’s Your Next Career Move, Brian?

Hi there Brian,
My name is Kelly Arnone and I’m the CEO at X App. I discovered your profile on LinkedIn this
week while looking for a Sales Ops Manager for our fast-growing sales team. It led me to both
Personalization your articles on sales team leadership on Medium. I’m really impressed by the thought and
Flattery
consideration you’ve put into running your teams.
If you’re getting a lot of emails about career opportunities these days—and you probably are—
I imagine you’re not hearing much from CEOs directly. But I attribute the success we’ve seen
so far at X App in part to my dedication to finding the best talent, putting them in the same
room, and watching them thrive. That’s why I commit so much of my own personal time to EVP
sourcing and outreach.
I’d love to tell you about our plan to open up a new market this year and about how we see
Sparking Curiosity experimentation and autonomy as central to a world-class sales team. If that sounds
interesting to you, feel free to schedule a 30-minute intro call with someone on our TA team
Call to Action
here. And if we discover it’s a ring you’d like to throw your hat into, I’d love to grab a coffee
with you.
I look forward to getting to talk to you soon, Brian,
Kelly Arnone
Signature
CEO, X App

With Gem, sourcers can send on behalf of hiring managers and

executives without having to get them directly involved. SOBO can
more-than-triple reply rates: after all, talent is more likely to engage
when they think they’re speaking directly with a company’s CEO
or CTO.

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 Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email

Subject: Great Talk at Last Month’s Marketing Summit Flattery

Hi there Jasmin!
This is Nicole Waller writing; we met briefly at the Bay Area Marketing Summit in January
Personalization (remember when summits were held in person?!). I’m still thinking about the talk you gave
about building humor into your company brand—in fact, once the video went live I shared
it with our marketing team, who loved it. Our company, Zen/zo, is undergoing an early
rebrand right now; and we’re looking for a Brand Marketing Manager who’d be willing to
take the reins and move us in a new direction. Ultimately, we’re looking to implement a lot
of what you spoke about when it comes to brand personality in our new strategy. Needless Flattery
to say, I can’t think of a better person to do it!
Zen/zo is 3 years old; we just closed our Series B ($18 million); and we’ve seen 100% YOY
Company Stability
growth so far. We’ve also got a pretty impressive portfolio of customers, including Airbnb,
Zillow, Twilio, and Pinterest. For the next few years, we’re focusing our business strategy
almost entirely on growing our customer base, particularly through events and paid
campaigns. We’ve got some ambitious goals and a fantastic team ready to chase them.
Here are a few more links about our company and what we’re up to:
• A day in the life of a Zen/zo marketer
EVP • Marketing values and principles (We’re working on clarifying these values for ourselves,
so feel free to ask questions. My personal favorite is “discerning experimentation.”)
• A blog post by our Director of Marketing, Sara, about diversity at Zen/zo
• Our matching gifts page (We match employee donations to local nonprofits and keep a
public running tab on where that money has gone)

I’ll save us some back-and-forth and give you a call at 12:30 this Thursday—but if that time
doesn’t work for you, send me another that works, and I’ll be sure to reach out. Call to Action

Nicole Waller (pronouns: she/her)

Signature Recruiter, Zen/zo

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How Gem Can Help

At Gem, we believe in the importance of sourcing so deeply that

we’ve built our products around automating its processes. Gem
integrates with your ATS and email and automates your sourcing
efforts, from 1-click upload to automated follow-ups. We create
efficiency throughout the candidate lifecycle—from initiating and
nurturing candidate relationships to increasing pipeline visibility,
allowing teams to optimize their outreach, better collaborate, and
enhance their overall talent brand.
 Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email

Increase Efficiency

Source 5x faster: Source directly from LinkedIn, 1-click upload to

ATS, or import a CSV of contacts from any source to start building
and nurturing candidate relationships. Our customers 4x their
reachouts, 2x their conversions to phone screen, and 2x their
response rates.

Email Finding: Gem instantly finds personal email addresses and

other contact info you can trust.

Outreach Sequences: Craft highly personalized outreach at scale

using dynamic tokens automatically pulled from prospect profiles.
Use send-on-behalf-of (SOBO) to leverage your hiring manager or VP’s
voice and dramatically increase your chances of receiving a reply.
Automated Follow-ups: Say goodbye to time-intensive, context-less
manual reminders and use Gem’s smart, automated follow-ups to 2x
your conversion rate to initial phone screen.
Deep ATS Integration: Spend less time navigating browser tabs and
more time engaging with candidates. Reach out to your prospects
and upload them to your ATS with 1 click. Push and pull information
to and from LinkedIn, Gem, and your ATS without switching screens
constantly.
Events: Automatically sync RSVPs and attendees from your events
into Gem so you can follow up with them appropriately and place
them into the right hiring funnels.
Talent Community: Open the door up to passive talent and
strengthen your talent brand by integrating Gem’s Talent Community
into the top of your funnel. Invite prospects to stay in touch with
compelling content and a variety of touchpoints that keep your
company top-of-mind until they’re ready for their next move.
Prospect Search: Use Boolean filters and advanced search
parameters to quickly narrow down your entire database of
prospects into a list of people you want to engage in a targeted way.
Generate invite lists for your next event, follow up with those who
were previously engaged, and pinpoint silver medalists to architect
a robust nurture program that keeps your pipelines full and pays
dividends for years.
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 Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email

Manage Prospects
Rules of Engagement: Make your team look good by preventing “double-
dipping” and keeping a consistent point of contact for the prospect. Gem’s
Rules of Engagement framework allows you to define when it’s ok to reach
out and how much time a recruiter has to keep the relationship alive.

Due dates and notifications: Stay on top of next steps by setting

due dates on prospects you want to come back to in the future. Tag a
teammate when you want them to take a look at something, and ping
2x Increase in Response Rates
hiring managers when they’ve forgotten to respond to a prospect that you
reached out to using send-on-behalf-of.
Our response rate drastically
increased once our sourcers
started using Gem. The automated
Manage Prospects follow-up feature doubled our
conversion rate from initial
Outreach Analytics: Track
reachout to phone screen.
performance and measure
messaging effectiveness by Mike Moriarty
recruiter, pipeline, gender, and Global Head of Talent Acquisition
more to optimize your team’s
output and focus their efforts
intelligently.

Content Stats: Content is king

if you use it effectively. Bolster
your talent brand and convey
the right employee value props
by sharing compelling content
in your outreach. See how
prospects are engaging with
your content through advanced
link-tracking to double down on
what’s working well.

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 Anatomy of a Great Cold Recruiting Email

Collaborate With Stakeholders

Resume Review: Calibrate with
hiring managers on the ideal profile
through Gem’s resume review flow.
Leave comments and tag each
other on profiles to quickly get on
the same page.

Share Data: Keep your stakeholders

abreast of the hard work you’re
putting into their searches. Share
reports containing top-of-funnel
metrics, prove the value of using
send-on-behalf-of, and illustrate
what your pipelines look like by
gender, race/ethnicity, and more.

4x Increase in Productivity per Resource Get Hiring Managers on Board

Once you have the ability to sequence the folks you’re reaching
out to—to have a second, third, fourth email auto-send—you’re
increasing productivity per resource considerably. Now one
sourcer is doing 4x the reachouts with Gem.
Jay Patel
Talent Acquisition Manager
We’ve tried everything and Gem is the first product to delight our hiring
managers. Now, everyone’s involved in the hiring process—our entire
company is an extension of the recruiting team!
Thomas Carriero
Chief Product Development Officer

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 Gem is an all-in-one recruiting platform that integrates with LinkedIn, email, and
your Applicant Tracking System (ATS). We enable world-class recruiting teams
to find, engage, and nurture top talent. With Gem, recruiting teams can manage
candidate pipeline with predictability.

To learn more and see a demo, visit

gem.com

©2020 Gem, Inc 11132020