Is cold outreach working for recruiters

Whether you’re an advanced hiring agency looking for clients’ hires or a scaling company looking for people to help you grow - recruiting top talents can be a pain.

The job market is saturated with opportunities, so the most qualified candidates are often passive job seekers. They're not actively looking for new positions but might be open to exciting opportunities, which pushes recruiters to be more proactive.

Recruiters can no longer solely rely on traditional job postings and expect top talents to come to them...

Instead, they use cold outreach - direct contact with potential candidates via cold email, LinkedIn message, call, or similar.

Cold outreach in recruiting allows you to personalize your headhunting approach and directly get in touch with people with the required skills and experience.

But how do you engage and follow up with hundreds of people every day without sounding like a robot? How to recruit at scale while keeping that human touch that makes you stand out?

In this playbook, get a step-by-step guide to finding and recruiting your top talents, and access to top recruiting templates to replicate today!

A step-by-step guide to finding & closing top talents with lemlist

Step 1: Find potential candidates

Option 1: Export people from LinkedIn with lemlist Chrome extension

1. Find potential candidates with LinkedIn’s advanced search filters

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for recruiters, as it gives you a large pool of potential candidates. Its advanced search capabilities allow you to find people based on their job role, seniority, location, industry, and much more.

Because LinkedIn profiles offer a comprehensive view of candidates' professional backgrounds, skills, and achievements, they are often more detailed than a traditional resume.

Besides a free LinkedIn account, you can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator or Recruiter plans for more advanced filtering options.

To ensure you leverage the power of its advanced filtering, here’s an ultimate LinkedIn search guide to help you get the best search results!

2. Use lemlist Chrome extension to send potential hires to lemlist

‍Once you've identified your ideal candidates, you'll want to collect their contacts so you can reach out to them.

Here’s how to send them to lemlist with the lemlist’s Chrome extension:

1. In case you don’t have a lemlist Chrome extension yet, get it from the Google Chrome Store

2. Ensure you’re logged into your lemlist & LinkedIn account. If you still don’t have your lemlist account, you can start a 14-day free trial here

3. Once your lemlist and LinkedIn account are linked, click the extension on your LinkedIn search results. The form with automatically filled-out (available) leads’ data will pop out.

4. After adjusting your "Import settings", choose which lemlist campaign you’d like to import your new leads to and export them in seconds!

Option 2: Find potential candidates in lemlist’s leads database

In lemlist, you can use its native lead database to find people to help you or your clients grow with top talents:

1. Join the lemlist lead database waitlist to get the exclusive access

2. In your lemlist dashboard, navigate to the Main Menu’s “Leads” section

3. Filter your search by targeted criteria, such as technology, company size, industry, or location. This helps you target hires that are most likely a good fit for your or your or your client’s company

4. Get a list of highly qualified potential hires!Join the lead database waitlist!

Join the lead database waitlist now!

Step 2: Get candidates’ valid emails

To get in touch with your ideal candidates and showcase your value, you need to have their valid contact information.

There are many data enrichment tools on the market, but beware! People usually have their professional emails on their profiles. You want their private contact instead, as they aren’t likely to talk about new job opportunities via work email.

One of the easiest ways to get your candidates' data is to use lemlist’s Smart Enrichment.

Thanks to the waterfall enrichment method, Smart Enrichment combines the best third-party data sources to give you 40-55% more valid emails.

This is the equivalent of asking 6 different providers for up-to-date leads’ information without navigating and subscribing to multiple apps.

Once you have your new potential hires imported into your lemlist campaign, select them and choose the “Smart enrichment” option!

For each lead, the app will:

• Clean the first name and last name
• Extract and save relevant available information from the lead's LinkedIn profile
• Retain the best email we found from multiple providers
• If available, save additional information such as phone number, civility, job title, and other relevant details

P.S. If you’re exporting up to 300 leads, you can enrich them directly through the lemlist Chrome extension!

… and get over 80%+ valid emails and leads' clean information, ready to boost your replies 🎉

In each lemlist plan, including a free trial, you will get free tokens to enrich your leads!

Find your candidates' emails for free

Pro tip: In case you can’t find candidates’ private contact info, our recruitment teams advise you to find them with tools such as Lusha or Kaspr!

Step 3: Reach out to your candidates with the ultimate multi-channel sequence

Once you’ve found your target candidates and their contact info, it’s time to craft an engaging outreach campaign that will make them want to work with you.

While most recruiters’ campaigns rely on a single outreach method, the most successful ones use a multi-channel approach - a combination of channels such as email, LinkedIn, phone calls, etc.

Because you’re connecting on the channels your leads prefer and based on their availability, going multi-channel increases the chances of them engaging with you!

And thanks to lemlist’s automation, you can run multi-channel steps 100% on autopilot!

Here’s an example of a multichannel recruitment sequence you can replicate today and book more interviews!

Let’s tear it down, step by step 👉

Step 1: LinkedIn profile visit

This automated step will help you stay on top of your leads’ minds and make you more familiar the next time you reach out to them. It will put a picture to your name and encourage them to reply when you send your initial email.

Wait for 3 days

Step 2: Email

What makes this step successful?

→ the subject line isn't focused on the recruiter's end goal but rather gives value to the candidate

→ it doesn’t aim to hire right off the bat but to confirm the candidates' interest

→ there is an interest-based question that is easy to reply to without asking for too much effort

To personalize emails like this at scale, you can use lemlist’s text variables!

No matter how many emails you send, you can automatically personalize any textual part of your message to grab leads' attention and build trust (e.g., intro line, pitch, CTA).

Wait for 4 days

Step 3: Email

What makes this step successful?

→ this email shows the sender did good research as it refers to candidates' tools

→ it pitches the hiring company by showcasing only the benefits interesting to candidates' specific role

→ it's easily scannable as it clearly lists the location and salary package

Step 4: Add the lemlist’s advanced condition

Advanced conditions in your outreach sequence are steps that will automatically change the flow of your campaign based on specific criteria you provide.

By adding triggers such as “Opened email within 5 days”, you can automate the next step based on whether the criteria were met or not.

If the candidate “Opened email within 5 days”:

Step 5: LinkedIn message

What makes this step successful?

→ sending a message on LinkedIn reminds your candidates of your initial message

→ there is again a new value for a candidate in the form of a valuable study

→ the PS element encourages candidates to check out their emails without being too pushy

If you’re unsure how to approach candidates on LinkedIn, check out this article and get free messaging tips to boost your reply rates!

P.S. You can use LinkedIn profiles from multiple colleagues who have positioned themselves as industry experts (relevant to your lead) to visit your candidates' profiles or send messages.

This increases the chance of your candidates seeing your brand. If your leads accept any of your multiple LinkedIn requests, they will start seeing your posts, which increases personal and company credibility and the likelihood of replying to your cold outreach sequence.

You can use lemlist's Inbox rotation to combine all lemlist sending accounts in one campaign for random candidate assignments. No need to duplicate campaigns manually or split the leads!

Wait for 1 day

Step 6: Email

What makes this step successful?

→ the video catches candidates' attention more easily than the written text and stands out from competitors’ emails

→ because there's not a lot of context around the video, it makes the message intriguing and pushes views

→ sending a video gives that extra personal touch, as it's easier for candidates to put a face to a text and build rapport

Here's an example of a video thumbnail
you can create!

Here are some out of many other ways to personalize at scale with lemlist custom variables:

1. use image variables

Stand out with personalized images by automatically adding your leads' names, logos, website screenshots

2. use website variables

Build personalized landing pages where you can embed your calendar and include assets or CTA

Step 7: Add advanced condition “Clicked on a link in the email within 2 days”

If a candidate didn’t click on the link in the email within 2 days:

Step 8: Breakup email

→ even though it might be clear that this particular candidate won’t be interested in this job offer, it keeps the opportunity open by asking for colleague recommendation

If a candidate clicks on the link in the email within 2 days:

Step 8: Call

→ Cold calling your candidates can help you build rapport directly and confirm immediately if there’s an interest.

You can get tips from this cold-calling guide to create personal connections with your prospects and overcome objections via cold calls

Wait for 3 days

Step 9: Same breakup email

If the candidate hasn’t “Opened email within 5 days”:

Step 5: Same email with a personalized video

Step 6: Add advanced condition “Clicked on the link in the email within 2 days”

Wait for 3 days

If a candidate didn’t click on the link in the email within 2 days:

Step 7: Breakup email

If a candidate clicked on the link in the email within 2 days:

Step 7: Add the advanced condition “Has a phone number"

If a candidate has a phone number:

Step 8: Call

If you don’t have the candidates’ phone numbers:

Step 8: Same breakup email

Duplicate this campaign

P.S. You can create multi-channel campaigns with lemlist’AI in seconds!

1. Log into the lemlist app (if you don’t already have an account, you can sign up to lemlist for free)

2. Choose to create your sequence with the help of AI

3. Fill in your:

• target audience
• value proposition
• trigger
• language
• tone of voice

4. Click “Generate your campaign”


5. Watch your sequence auto-generate with every step of your cold outreach campaign, including content and personalized variables!

Step 4: Avoid landing in the spam, and increase your chances of a reply

Email deliverability is the ability to deliver emails right into your target's primary inbox where they can read them.

As your emails can land in the spam folder without you knowing, having a warm-up and deliverability booster helps you spot and prevent any deliverability troubles.

For each paid lemlist seat, you'll get access to lemwarm to ensure high deliverability in the long run!

After months of tests with 20k+ users, lemwarm offers you the right deliverability strategy based on your goals and email characteristics, which makes it the most complete warm-up and deliverability tool on the market.

You'll be able to:

The key is to keep lemwarm ON before - during - after sending campaigns, so you keep your emails out of the spam folder in the long run!

To always land in your target audience’s inbox, check out this ultimate email deliverability framework and avoid the spam folder forever!

Step 5: Monitor your results

Tracking your campaign metrics is important, as it helps you see if your campaigns are successful and know what to double down to boost your results.

To get a clear overview of your campaign results, you can use lemlist’s report section.

From there, you can see how many leads received your emails, opened, clicked, replied, and how many are interested.

You can also have similar data for your LinkedIn steps: how many invites (or connection requests) you sent, how many LinkedIn profiles you visited, and how many messages you sent.

If you have call or API steps in your campaign, you’ll also see them appear in the results.

You can also switch to the negative metrics of your campaigns to access the number of emails that bounced, the number of leads that are not interested, and how many of them unsubscribed.

Based on your metrics, you’ll also get insights into what you should change to improve your results.

Here are the most important metrics you want to aim for:

• Interested rates → 5% to 15% (top performers reach between 15 to 30%, or even more)
• Sending volume → 100 to 200 new prospects
per week
• Open rates → > 50%+ (less than 50% means there’s a high chance that you have deliverability issues)

How do you write recruiting campaigns that convert? How do you create multi-channel sequences? Where to look for recruiting outreach tips & best practices?

There are so many questions, and most outreach templates and resources online are generic or outdated...

To help you outperform your recruiting target while saving time, we launched the Cold Outreach Templates Hub!

You can access the best-performing outreach templates from 400+ million emails sent by 37,000+ outbound experts!

-> avoid writing copies from scratch and duplicate successful templates in 1 click, straight in your lemlist account

-> save hours on researching the best outreach practices and get expert results without being an outreach expert

-> find data about outreach campaigns from 10+ industries, reaching 1,200+ managers resulting in $110M+ revenue

Check out the Outreach Templates Hub

Cold outreach is an essential recruiting method to capture the attention of top-tier talents in 2023.

When combined with outreach automation tools like lemlist, it empowers recruiters to connect with the next transformative hire.

With the competitive job market, those who excel in cold outreach following the steps from this playbook will secure a unique edge and attract top talents!

And the best part? For each of these steps, you will get free tokens even in your lemlist trial period.

Test out its 150 free tokens that translate to 3 AI-generated multi-channel campaigns, 15 free AI-generated icebreakers, and 30 valid leads’ emails!

Get started for free

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