LinkedIn’s New InMail Policy: 4 Ways Recruiters Should Respond

January 5, 2015

As you may have already heard, LinkedIn’s InMail policies are changing in 2015, and that’s likely to have a major impact on recruiters who use LinkedIn for their candidate sourcing and outreach.

Up until now, LinkedIn had agreed to credit any InMails that did not receive a response back to a recruiter’s account. Ex: If you sent out 100 InMails, but only 25 were answered, you would get 75 credits back. The problem is that, as a result, some took advantage of the opportunity to blast out generic InMails in bulk, safely assuming they would not be penalized for any InMails that didn’t get a response.

To protect its members from this practice, LinkedIn has now changed the policy to force recruiters to spend more time crafting targeted, relevant InMails — something we should all be doing, already — by rewarding them for InMails that do get a response.

Per the new policy, only InMails that receive a response within 90 days will be credited back to your account. Ones that go unanswered will not be reimbursed. Given that the average response rate is around 25%, that means sending out bulk messages is likely to result in a waste of 75 InMail credits for every 100 spent.

In other words, in order to reach more candidates under the new policy you need to increase your response rate. Here are four tips to help you do just that.

4 Tips for Increasing Your LinkedIn InMail Response Rate

  1. Tailor every message to the candidate you are reaching out to. Talk about the skills you see in their profile, their accomplishments, their history with prior companies they’ve worked with. Make sure it’s obvious you actually read their profile and have a genuine interest in their background, not just the .NET programming experience that popped up in your Boolean.
  2. Title the message with something eye-catching and different. Chances are, candidates (especially technical candidates) are receiving 5-10 messages a day, at minimum. Why should they open yours? Your subject line needs to stand out in a sea of “Job Opportunity at X” messages. Whether it’s something random (“What is your favorite movie?”) or something about the company or role that’s enticing (“Skytap just raised $35mm!” or “Be a Part of Unleashing the Power of Data to Change the World”), make sure your message is compelling.
  3. In fact, leave “job opportunity” out of the message altogether. “What if you went to a restaurant and they didn’t give you a menu — they just put food on the table?” asked Glen Cathey, SVP Talent Strategy and Innovation at Kforce, during his LinkedIn Talent Connect presentation. “You need to find out what candidates are looking for. Don’t just present job opportunities.” Make the message about the candidate. What about them interested you and what are they looking for in a next step?
  4. Don’t ask for referrals in the first message. Most candidates hate this — it makes them feel like you were never interested in their profile. Here’s another great comparison Cathey made: “Hey, do you want to go on a date? No? Do you have a sister or a friend?” A lot of times, if your message is good, a candidate will respond that they are not looking, personally, but they may know a few others who could be a fit. That’s great, but remember, you need to build a relationship before you ask for something.

At the end of the day, the best tip I can give is to be human and treat candidates as human beings. No one likes being spammed or feeling like a means to an end. Be conscientious and be real. A little personality can go a long way.

What tips do you have for reaching out to candidates on LinkedIn?

Photo by: Joey Rozier

Senior Talent Manager, Engineering

<strong>Meghan Maher</strong> is Senior Talent Manager, Engineering, actively recruiting top talent for OpenView and its Portfolio Companies. Her tech background has helped OpenView hire for nearly 20 IT and engineering positions. Meghan began her career at AVID Technical Resources, where she was a Technical Recruiter for two years.