Top 5 LinkedIn InMail Templates to Source Passive Candidates in 2024

What’s the one common challenge faced by a majority of organizations today? Sourcing and recruiting quality talent – for as much as 69% of employers today. The exponential growth in business competition and shortage of qualified candidates have made the recruitment space more complex than ever. If that wasn’t enough - over 70% of the total workforce are passive job seekers - they do not apply for jobs, but would be open to switching if an opportunity is appealing enough. With the aim to connect with these candidates, professional platforms - especially LinkedIn becomes all the more important. In this blog, We will discuss how you can ace your outreach to candidates along with the best LinkedIn InMail templates. Read till the end for a comprehensive guide around sourcing passive candidates through LinkedIn.

Passive sourcing has now become a norm, given the constant hunt for talent that recruiters are on these days. Amidst the continuously evolving recruitment landscape, the approach towards candidates and communication strategy needs to be pivoted too. It’s undoubtedly a candidate-driven market and hence it’s critical to tailor your recruiting approach while outreaching. Modern brands should follow a more marketing-styled framework to attract and engage candidates – which will surely give them an upper edge over other competitors.

Now, without any further ado, let’s dive deep into how employers can reach out to candidates and leverage LinkedIn InMail templates for the same!

What is Passive Candidate Sourcing? A Recall

There was no problem with the traditional application-based recruiting model unless the shortage of qualified candidates began. Additionally, hiring for specialized roles with higher skills requirements, also cannot be done actively. 

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Passive candidate sourcing refers to connecting, engaging and recruiting candidates who aren’t actively looking for a job and have not applied for your role. Most of these candidates are already employed, so reaching out to them is much similar to selling through cold outreach. They don’t have any intent to find a new job, but if you want to draw their interest – the outreach and offer should be lucrative for the candidates. 

This sourcing method is not only crucial in hiring, but also while building a talent pool of candidates. As the requirements of organizations are becoming more dynamic, It’s vital to continuously expand your talent pool to quickly source candidates. Especially, sourcing tech talent has been the priority in the global recruitment space – as the demand for software engineers and developers has drastically soared, recruiters have learnt not to stop sourcing to avoid struggles while hiring.

Additionally, candidates now have plenty of employment options to choose from, and it’s not only improved payroll that interests them – they seek better workplace culture, inclusivity, promising work security,  and a number of other factors. As a recruiter, your focus should be on building trust and engaging continuously with qualified talent no matter what.

How to Source Passive Candidates from LinkedIn?

Recruitment now involves more marketing, and subsequently – passive candidate sourcing is like sales. All the aspects of selling - from personalization to targeting the most critical pain points, nurturing the prospective candidates and pushing them down the funnel, are parts of a passive candidate’s journey.

Also read: How to ace passive candidate sourcing?

LinkedIn is the best platform to source candidates for your organization, both passive and active. A perfect mix of professional and social features on the platform allows recruiters to know a lot more about candidates than through CVs. The recommendations, endorsements and referrals are underrated but extremely valuable for candidates as well as for recruiters to identify talented individuals.

Here’s a step-by-step process to source candidates actively on LinkedIn:

1. Find Candidates using Keywords

The first step in the LinkedIn sourcing process is to find candidates through keywords using a LinkedIn search. Numerous filtering options allow you to find the candidates with characteristics that you’re targeting - education, location, years of experience, previous company and a bunch of other filters are available on LinkedIn search. Keywords can include the job title and location for finding relevant candidates. You can also search for candidates from any company and study their profiles in order to finalize your list of prospects to reach out to. 

It should also be noted that each time you do a keyword search, the results might vary a bit. So it is recommended to consistently perform keyword-based searches on LinkedIn to source candidates.

2. Extract Details About the Candidate

To understand a candidate’s potential pain points and motivation triggers, you need to analyze their profile actively. LinkedIn tells you so much more about a candidate than their resume which mostly covers skills and experience. The content that your target prospects create, and their engagement with the audience clearly reflect one’s passion. As recruiters - that’s the first thing you should take into account. 

On the other hand, as you need to reach out to candidates - you can either find their contact info to connect via external channels, or you can utilize LinkedIn InMails to reach out to them even if you are not connected, which is usually the case.

3. Plan and Execute Your Outreach

Now that you have analyzed multiple profiles and have access to their contact details, it’s time to execute planned outreach. Before you begin, it’s crucial to have your mindset ready for the long-term game, especially if you’re doing outreach for the first time. Each individual would receive your outreach differently. So make sure you don’t fret about not getting replies or getting rejections repeatedly.

Moving on to the plan, outreach that is personalized would probably work better in drawing your prospect’s interests. Focus on their pain points, and interests and fill the gaps through your approach. Highlight the work culture at your organization and how you plan to always be employee-centric rather than focusing just on your business. Additionally, put more emphasis on why they should consider the opportunity and how it can add up to their already valuable skills and talent.

Contrary to popular opinion, LinkedIn is not at all a saturated platform. With a strategic and targeted approach, you will be able to get leads and recruit them. You will be surprised to know that over 90% of prospective candidates are open to and willing to discuss in-depth opportunities. 

Messaging Framework

Now comes another crucial aspect that recruiters undermine - their outreach messaging. How do you position yourself as an employer? What do you highlight about your organization while pitching to candidates? How do you ensure a high response rate for your outreach campaigns? Here are a few tips you can use:

• Start with the receiver’s name
• Tell them clearly about what your company does and what makes it stand apart in one line.
• Be concise with role description and what it has in store for them
• Highlight something that the recipient recently achieved or did, which made them stand out
• Keep the tone very friendly and encouraging
• Include short and crystal-clear CTA

Ready-to-go LinkedIn InMail Templates for Recruiters

We talked about how passive candidate sourcing is the way forward towards a more competitive future with numerous recruiters chasing qualified talent.
If you’re planning to scale passive candidate sourcing, LinkedIn can well be your primary destination. 

We have researched, analyzed and discussed with a number of successful recruiters to come up with a set of top LinkedIn InMail samples and templates, that work wonders. 

Now that you’re here, don’t wait to grab them and maximize your recruitment ROI through effective candidate sourcing.

#1 The Great Opportunity Template

Hi [candidate name],

Hope you’re doing great!

We at [company name] have had a look at your profile and it seems you have done some amazing work. You seem like an outstanding fit for the [job role] opportunity that we have open at [company name]. Would you be interested in associating yourself with our global renown brand as we help you fulfil your career goals?

Could we connect on a quick introduction call about this? Let me know what time works best for you.

Looking forward to hearing from you

Best,

[Your name]

#2 The Achievement Highlight

Hi [candidate name],

I hope everything’s well at your end!

I noticed the performance that made you achieve [achievement]. Subsequently, I along with my team loved your work and we think you would be a great fit for the [job role] opportunity.

Would you be fine with a 15 minutes conversation allowing me to learn more about you and to discuss what awaits you next in your career?

Let me know if and when you’re up for a coffee at our [city] campus.

Thanks, looking forward to it.

Best,

[Your Name]

#3 Post-Event Outreach Template

Hi [candidate name],

It was amazing interacting with you at [event/meeting/work], I got excited looking at how passionate you are at your profession! 

Hope everything’s going good at your end.

I told my team about meeting you and we all think you might be the perfect fit for the [job role] opportunity at our company, [company name].

Could we have a call today or tomorrow to discuss it in brief?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Best,

[Your name]

#4 Referral Outreach Template

Hi [candidate name],

I am [your name] and I work as [your designation] for [your company]. My friend - [referring person’s name] referred you to me for an opportunity at our organization., [company name]

[referring person’s name] mentioned you might be an excellent fit for a [job role] opportunity that we have open right now.

I trust [him/her] very much and would love to arrange a call to discuss this further. What time works best for you?

Thanks, and looking forward to hearing from you!

[Your name]

#5 Content Appreciation Outreach

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Hi [Name],

Hope you’re doing well!

Just saw your LinkedIn post on [topic]. What inspired you to write about it? 

I actually forwarded that to my team at the office and we all loved it! I head recruiting at [your company], and we are solving for [company mission].

I’m looking for a passionate professional to lead our [team name] team – would you be interested in knowing more about it?

Let me know if a quick call works for you tomorrow or the day after!

Thanks, looking forward to your response.

Best,

[Your Name]

How can Nurturebox Help You Scale Your Passive Candidate Sourcing?

Candidate sourcing is not a one-step activity, it’s a full-fledged journey. From identifying the right talent to reaching out, engaging, nurturing and managing your candidate pipeline – can well be too overwhelming if done manually. We should not forget the intense need to optimize recruiting teams’ productivity for the organization’s growth. The road to redemption? Saving your efforts and time for critical tasks like assessing candidates and automating the sourcing management process. 

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Nurturebox enables recruiters and their teams to automate numerous hefty tasks involved in candidate sourcing and talent management. When it comes to passive candidate sourcing, you don’t want to get burnt out of reaching out to hundreds of candidates and investing weeks of time in just engaging with them. Nurturebox’s Chrome extension handles the mundane tasks so that you just need to identify and add candidates in the sourcing pipeline and focus on evaluation rather than admin chores. Our solution integrates with your LinkedIn and comprehensively assists you with passive candidate sourcing automation.

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