A few years ago, dropping someone’s name and title in the opening line of the message was considered “personalization.” But in this case, your message remains generic with no life. Most candidates start ignoring it, as they might receive hundreds of messages like that daily.
How can you handle this?
Hyper-personalized candidate outreach on LinkedIn is the key. We’ll share ideas on how you can grab data for personalization and properly use it to get higher response rates.
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What Is a Hyper-Personalized Candidate Outreach?
Investing in hyper-personalization efforts can pay off big for improving response/acceptance rates up to 80%, so it’s time to give personalization a whole meaning.
Hyper-personalization outreach means that you create and send messages that touch different aspects of a candidate’s career, activities, and life. This is much more than putting names in the outreach templates – hyper-personalized messages are tailored specifically for the person you’re reaching out to.
When candidates read your message, they must feel you’ve messaged personally to them. Creating a personalized message becomes easy if you have a general idea of what candidates do and their motivation and interests.
What is the best place to find such personalization data? Right, a Linkedin profile. We’ve got 10 ideas for finding information on how to make your messages personal and stand out against other sourcers.
Before You Start: The Short List of the Tools you Need
No one likes routine like doing 100 times of CTRL+C/CTRL+V, so Magical text expander is an excellent helping hand to speed up and sort your templates.
To prevent making grammar and punctuation mistakes, we highly recommend using Grammarly, the most popular spelling and grammar checker with first-class accuracy on the Internet.
Websites like Giphy.com, Tenor, and Reface will help you stand out by humanizing your emails with Emojis or Gifs. (We don’t know a single person who doesn’t like a good sense of humor. Do you?)
Of course, we’ll need tools to scrape the data and automated reach out to candidates. Here are 24 Chrome extensions that will be useful for sourcing and recruiting.
10 Ideas to Pay Attention To on a Candidate’s LinkedIn Profile
#1. Mutual connections
You can personalize your message in your outreach by mentioning your mutual connections. This enables you to quickly build trust and establish credibility with the candidate.
Outreach message:
“We are connected with the same people like George, Karina, etc., who are great developers and experts in software development; we had a chance to discuss many topics related to IT Industry so …”
Success tip: If you know someone personally from the connection, you can ask for a reference.
#2. “About Me” section
This is where you can find not only why the candidate is the best person for the relevant position, but also what are their interests or values, hobbies or expectations from future jobs, etc.
Showing interest in a candidate’s professional life could help you create a strong relationship that, over time, might bring you fruitful cooperation. In this game, it’s all about trust and your expertise.
Outreach message:
“…I couldn’t help contacting the participant of the most prestigious programming contest in the world. Have you ever thought about yourself as a part of a Silicon Valley company? Here is a chance 😉”
Or use the candidate’s hobby:
“I’ve just seen your Instagram videos of your hiking trip. I am impressed! How long have you been hiking? I took it up in the Carpathian Mountains last year and can’t wait to try another location. Do you have any advice?”
Success tip: Be attentive to every single word in this section as often candidates may ask here to do not disturb them with job offers, or they may hide “an Easter egg” on it to be sure you spend some time reading their CV or profile summary.
Here is an example:
For this candidate, the outreach message might look like this:
“I see you being involved not only in software development but also in magic. What could Abrakadabra bring you as a present? Right, to become a part of a Silicon Valley company.”
#3. NGOs and Volunteering
Suppose you see that person engaged in volunteering organizations. In that case, it is a great opportunity to mention it in your message as people adore it when you show interest in their philanthropic activities.
Moreover, volunteering shows that the candidate is passionate, has a positive attitude, is motivated by things other than money, and is willing to help others. These are attractive attributes for any future employer and your personalized message.
Also, volunteering may show the candidate’s leadership skills, so going the extra mile for this person is not a problem.
Outreach message:
“As Winston Churchill said, We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. Right, {First Name}?. I see you are not only a great software engineer with exceptional skills in Java but also a person with a big heart who invests lots of time in helping other people.”
Success tip: If you need a candidate with leadership skills and the intention to work with people, pay attention to big volunteering organizations like AIESEC, AEGEE, ICRC, and others, who focus on developing leadership qualities and capabilities in young professionals.
Recommended post: Talent Mapping: How to Build a Strong Sourcing Strategy
#4. Activity section
This section includes the posts candidates publish, the comments they drop on others’ posts and content, and the content they share.
The idea is quite simple: follow up on the fact that candidates commented on a Linkedin post, and you can make the approach to them more human.
Outreach message:
“I’ve just finished reading your post on LinkedIn about managing junior developers. Wow! It is terrific and beneficial for me as I’m managing a small team of junior sourcers, and most of your tips are applicable even for recruitment.”
Also, if you found a candidate who commented on a post, as an icebreaker, you can share similar content:
“I saw you were interested in the MatcHR post about three reasons people quit their jobs. I would love to chat about it as I recently wrote something similar on my Medium page.”
Success tip: If you find no posts on the candidate’s Linkedin page, look at the comments they make. Sometimes you may discover the most critical and exciting ideas for your personalization there.
#5. Experience section
This section is critical for candidate profiles, showing the previous work results and accomplishments. Most of us pay attention only to the last working place, but have you ever analyzed all the companies that person worked for?
Outreach messages:
“With your further background from the last few years working with great companies like Meta, Timecode, and Playtika, I truly believe you can greatly impact our product moving to a new level.”
“Hi {First Name}, It seems you have a great time working for {Company Name} on the great design and implement scalable and high-performing solutions for the trading system. Anyway, I decided to drop you a note to find out if you keep half an eye open for a new opportunity like the one we have in {Company Name}.”
Success tip: By analyzing the job experience of candidates, it is possible to understand what companies they like to work for, product companies or consultancy, for the fintech or health niche, and as a result, feel free to use it for your personalization.
#6. Education section
The education section says a lot about candidates, especially if you pay attention to colleges/universities that matter and relate to their profession. Moreover, candidates can indicate awards or honors that become an idea for your personalized message.
Outreach message:
“Hi {First Name}, I was recently chatting {Mutual connection}, who was raving about Software Engineers who finished the Kyiv Politechnichny Institute, one of the best tech educational centers in Ukraine. And, after reading your Linkedin profile, I understood why…”
Success tip: Sourcing candidates from top technical universities would bring value and the best matches. You can check the best universities for engineering here.
#7. Licenses & Certifications
Skill development is necessary for every professional in the digital era, showing candidate involvement in professional life, growing, and staying up-to-day regarding changes in the tech industry. Certifications are ideal ice breakers for your message.
Success tip: Licenses and certification is an excellent topic for personalization and an opportunity to source great candidates by building a Boolean search with the most potent certificates in the industry.
Recommended post: How to Attract Candidates with Spotify
#8. Skills and endorsements section
The Skills & Endorsements section is critical for Sourcers as we build a Boolean search using the main keywords, so ignoring this section would be a crime.
Outreach messages:
”Your engineering expertise working with {Custom1} caught my attention and could be relevant to moving our product to the next level.”
“Hi {First Name}, the incredibly valuable product you’re developing in {Company Name} with such latest technologies like {Custom}. Your skills working with high-load systems and our current project make us a perfect match.”
Success tip: If you want to understand how techy a candidate is, analyze how many times had endorsed the tech skills. This also could be an idea for your personalization, like: “I’ve seen Andrew noticed your agile knowledge, would be happy to hear about this project more…”.
#9. Projects section
The Projects section is a powerful part of the LinkedIn profile as it is a relatively underutilized topic of the candidate profile but still exciting. It helps highlight candidate engagement with different company-driven initiatives and technologies. It demonstrates candidate skills and expertise and enhances the engineer’s reputation.
Outreach messages:
“Hi {First Name}, I’ve just spent the last 30 minutes on your LinkedIn profile reading the recent project you published on {Project Name}. I was thrilled! We’re working on a similar project in Scala, which it looks like you’re currently programming in!”
“Hi {First Name}, We haven’t spoken, but I am familiar with some of the work you are doing, especially {Project Name}.”
Success tip: If you found a good candidate with no projects mentioned on a Linkedin profile, it is possible to check his Github profile to see recent projects they were involved in. Great opportunity to surprise candidates with your expertise!
#10. Recommendations
LinkedIn recommendations are also a valuable tool that can provide credibility to anyone looking for a great candidate.
Outreach messages:
“One of our former colleagues and our mutual acquaintance (connection_name) very enthusiastically recommended you as a great engineer.”
“I heard you’re a highly experienced Software Engineer (recommendations never lie!) with great expertise with Node.js, JavaScript, and Typescript, so I couldn’t help but reach out as your skills might be helpful to move our product to the next level.”
Success tip: Going through the Recommendations section, you have a chance to find content for your personalization and the next suitable candidate for the role you’re sourcing.
Wrapping up
A well-written message is a first impression people get about you; a first impression is essential as in in-person communications. A personalized approach to people is your “Best friend” here. This works well because you’re mentioning something unique with each message (first name, skills, education and projects, topics mentioned in the article, etc.)
That level of hyper-personalization increases your acceptance rate and helps build more meaningful relationships with future candidates.
And voila – this is where the magic happens!
