Hey everyone. Welcome to the first episode of Recruiting School, a podcast by recruiters for recruiters dedicated to sharing the skills and tools that you need to thrive as a recruiter in today's climate.

As you know, yesterday's price is not today's price, and yesterday's market is not today's market. We cannot be applying yesterday's strategies today. It has been an amazing ride as a recruiter, and I've seen so many versions of this very industry in the five years I've been doing this.

But before I was a recruiter, I spent a lot of time doing email marketing actually, and I learned a lot about email deliverability from my experience as a direct response marketer in the health and wellness space. Before I started as a recruiter, I had a career in sales and marketing.

So I came into my recruiting experience with just a different lens. I immediately started falling in love with sourcing and implementing a sourcing strategy from day one. I was able to achieve not just great results but find out that I'm actually really, really good at this. So instead of gatekeeping this information, I went ahead and a few months ago I blog posted about this and I noticed that it's one of my not just most trafficked pages, but people stay on this page for so long and I get questions about this.

All the time. So I figured I do more of a deeper dive into email deliverability for recruiters.

What is email deliverability?

Email deliverability refers to the ability for an email to successfully reach the intended recipient's inbox. It is important for recruiters because it ensures that their emails to potential candidates and clients are being delivered and seen, rather than getting lost in spam or junk folders. A high deliverability rate improves the chances of the recipient opening and responding to the email, which is crucial for the recruitment process. If emails are not delivered or are sent to spam, recruiters may miss out on potential candidates and clients, and their recruitment efforts may be less effective.

Recently, email deliverability has been a popular topic, but it is often a distraction from the actual problem, which is you. Before discussing any technical deliverability issues, let's first address the problem.

Before addressing any technical deliverability issues, it's crucial to first understand the problem with your emails. Are they being sent to the spam box? Are they being placed in the promotional tab? Or are they not being opened at all?

Here's how to determine if your emails are going to spam or the promo folder:

1. Create three email accounts on Gmail (or the email service provider you use the most) for testing purposes. One account should be used to not open the email, another should be used to open the email, and the third should be used to open the email and click any links.

2. Send your email sequences to each account.

3. Check all three accounts in Gmail to see where each email ended up. Follow the test prompts, whether it's not opening the email, opening the email, or opening and clicking emails.

4. Make changes to your emails based on the results of this test. It's recommended to do this test before sending a new email template to candidates, especially if you have concerns about email deliverability.

5. Use a Notion page to track the results of your test, and use it to note any spam trigger words you notice in the emails that end up in the spam box. This information can help you avoid getting your emails sent to spam in the future.

Your emails are vanilla and so are you.

So many people are sending bland, boring, self-serving emails. I’ll give you examples of what I mean and how to fix it. 

So many people re used to recruiting off the coattails of their company’s brand. They think people want to work with them until they end up at a smaller company with no brand and they realize the pipeline has dried up.

People send hundreds and thousands of emails each month without taking a lot of what we’re going to talk about into consideration and then wonder why open rates are dropping, response rates dwindle, and there are no interviews to show for their work.

On top of that, recruiting is having its heyday. Everyone wants to enter the recruiting industry. It sounds sexy, and it sounds lucrative, but people are forgetting how hard it is, right? And people are forgetting the fundamentals and just running into it. And again, it goes back into just this mass, like email, just, just trash system that's going on right now.

So let's get into some tactical tips. 

Determine a baseline for your open rates, response rates, conversion rates, and hire rates. 

This can be done through built-in functionality in your recruiting tools or by manually tracking and calculating the data because let’s be honest no tool on the market really works in a way that truly represents how expert sourcers are working. You’ll use these benchmarks to compare future sequences and campaigns to. Determine your current performance level and analyze the data on a weekly bases with your team.

Be aware that industry benchmarks may not always apply to your specific situation, especially if you are recruiting for early-stage or smaller companies.

Look at the tooling you are using and discover what your baseline is going to be based on, rather than relying on random benchmarks found online. The goal is to determine your own baseline and improve upon your recruiting process, rather than comparing yourself to other companies that may not be recruiting as efficiently.

Understand that recruiting for early-stage or smaller companies (seed, Series A, Series B) is different from recruiting for larger, more established companies, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Avoid the Spam Box: How Regularly Reviewing Spam Emails Can Improve Your Recruiting Email Deliverability

Going through your spam box regularly can help you identify spam trends

By identifying these trends, recruiters can avoid using similar language, subject lines and messaging in their own emails, which can increase the chances of their emails being delivered to the inbox and improve their open and response rates. 

Additionally, going through the spam box can help recruiters identify specific patterns, like emails coming from certain domains or with certain subject lines that may be flagged as spam.

Doing this regularly is way better than reading a blogpost that gets updated regularly on spam word trends.

Writing “re:” in front of your subject line may be cheeky, but trying to trick the people you’re emailing is actually one of the easiest ways to end up in the spam box as it’s deemed deceitful.

Stand Out from the Crowd: How Reviewing Recruiting Emails Can Help Improve Your Open and Response Rates

It can be helpful to review recruiting emails that people receive from recruiters today in order to avoid sounding like everyone else. One way to do this is by asking people to submit recruiting emails they have received. By reviewing these emails, recruiters can see common language, subject lines, and messaging being used by other recruiters and take note of what might be considered "vanilla" or generic. This allows them to identify areas where they can differentiate themselves and stand out from other recruiters, which can help increase their open and response rates. Additionally, by reviewing a variety of recruiting emails, recruiters can gain a better understanding of what works and what doesn't in terms of language, tone, and messaging, and use this information to improve their own recruiting emails.

Cut Through the Clutter: How Being Direct in Your Subject Line Can Improve Your Recruiting Email Open Rates

Many recruiters focus too much on being cute, funny, and cheeky with their subject lines, to the point where it's not even clear what the email is about or why the recipient should open it. This approach may result in a higher open rate, but the quality of the open rate is likely to be low as the recipient may not be interested in the actual content of the email. To improve the open rates and the quality of your open rates, it's best to be direct in your subject line. If the email is about a job offer, say it. If it's about freelance or contract work, make that clear. If the position is remote, onsite or hybrid, mention that. Also, include pay information if possible. Being direct and clear in your subject line will help attract the right candidate, and will make you stand out in a crowded inbox.

Regenerate Responses to Improve Deliverability: How Posing a Question to Candidates Can Increase Email Engagement

Draft your recruitment emails in a way that prompts candidates to reply, whether they are interested or not. This not only helps you better gauge their interest outside of email opens, avoids your from reaching out to the wrong person, but also improves your email deliverability. Email service providers (ESPs) view receiving replies as a sign that the sender is a real person, not a spammer. To encourage replies, include a question or call to action in your emails that prompts candidates to opt-in or out of further communication or provide updates on their career goals. By doing so, you will increase the chances of getting a response and improve your email deliverability.

Avoid Including Links and Attachments in Recruiting Emails to Improve Deliverability

When sending recruiting emails, it's important to avoid including links and attachments as they can negatively impact email deliverability. This is because it is not normal to send these types of items to people you don't know and email service providers (ESP) may flag them as spam.

Additionally, by providing candidates with links, you miss out on the opportunity to generate a response and improve your email deliverability. While generating a response may seem like an effective way to measure the success of your campaigns, it's important to remember that the real measure of success is the number of interviews and hires that result from your campaigns.

Do not email someone on their company email address and do not use your personal email for recruiting efforts unless you know someone personally and you’ve emailed back and forth on that email before.

Double-check who you’re emailing, do not assume data scrapers are always accurate.

Take a second to double-check for an up-to-date email address before your emails bounce, potentially affecting deliverability.

How many emails to send each day?

The number of emails a recruiter can send daily without getting sent to the spam box will depend on a variety of factors such as the recipient's email service provider, the content of the email, and the recipient's engagement with the emails.

There is no number. But what I can say is as long as your emails are relevant, engaging, and you’re emailing the right people, 50-100 emails a day is fine. But if you’re sending more than 50, you better have high conversion rates. If not, slow down and renew your sequences.

Make your emails worth reading

I go through my framework for what it takes to get your emails opened, and responded to and how to write highly converting sequences in this podcast.

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