Initial Outreach and Messaging Hakon Verespej

www.verespej.com

@hverespej

You’re not talking with candidates. You’re talking with people. Treat them like it.

Recommendations:

1. Since you’re selling a role at a company, start by making sure your public messaging is in good

shape.

a. Do you have consistent, compelling messaging across public media that illustrates your

company’s values and why it’s an exciting place?

b. Are your job descriptions meaningful and enticing?

c. What does your own LinkedIn profile look like? Apply best practices like writing with an

authentic voice (i.e. use your real voice), using a good photo, etc.

2. Get to know the person you’re reaching out to.

a. The most important thing to do is simply to read their profile!

b. What patterns do you see in their past work? What technologies do they love? What are

their career objectives?

c. Explore their web footprint. Are they on Twitter? Facebook? G+? Etc.

d. What’s important to them? Who are they beyond their work profile?

3. Subject lines are the most important piece of content you create.

a. It’s the reason someone opens a message.

b. Follow proven/best practices and learn from marketers.

4. Of course, the body matters too.

a. The subject line gets them to read the body; the body gets them to take action.

b. Again, take a cue from marketers.

c. Be customized, direct, specific, and authentic.

5. Know about previous outreach/engagement from your company.

a. When someone hears from the same company six times in a week, it can be confusing.

It looks desperate, disorganized, and unprofessional. It ruins the mystique and allure of

hearing from your company.

b. Ideally, build on previous engagement.

6. Have someone prominent and/or with a similar background to the recipient do the outreach.

Keep in mind:

1. Evaluate cost/reward and allocate your time accordingly.

a. Low-pri roles aren’t worth spending an hour digging up obscure data.

b. High-pri roles and ideal matches warrant additional time and attention.

2. Some people just won’t respond.

a. Some people never reply to people they don’t know.

b. Some people never check LinkedIn.

3. Many people dislike connection attempts from people they don’t know.

a. Give value before you take it! Don’t prioritize your needs over theirs.

b. At a minimum include some custom text in connection requests – don’t use the default.

4. InMail alternatives (Email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) can get a better response rate.

a. Fewer similar messages allows your message to stand out more.

b. Warning: Some people don’t want to be reached via those channels.

5. Don’t get spam-canned.

a. Avoid using templates when reaching out via email (actually, avoid this whenever

possible).

b. Unsolicited email can cause people to mark your email as spam.

c. Gmail will start marking your email as spam if it sees either of the above.

d. Sometimes your domain can be flagged if someone else (or something else like a bot)

has been misbehaving.

e. You can also suffer if someone has spoofed your email address for malicious purposes.