How to successfully get in touch with candidates
To find the right person is just one part of the equation. Here is how to reach out to them successfully
To find the right person is just one part of the equation. Here is how to reach out to them successfully
Many recruiters already know that reaching out and getting a response from passive candidates, as many R&D experts are, is pretty difficult.
One way to increase the response rate from candidates is to ensure that your messages are relevant to them. By focusing on relevant messaging and attaching skills information from the candidate's view, you can increase the number of responses you receive. We have made it easier for you to do this with our templates. You can find them here.
The results of our tests, as well as those of larger studies from Researchgate.net and others, show that messages that are relevant to the recipient increase the chances of getting a reply. With HardSkills you get a complete picture of a candidate's hard skills and thus more reference points to discuss. In contrast, when a LinkedIn profile is almost empty, the chance of being relevant decreases, because there are too few reference points to mention.
It is common for people to seek validation from others. Research and development experts are no exception. The holders of patents in the HardSkills system are typically proud of their patents and referencing them in your communication with potential candidates has been shown to increase the response rate.
HardSkills topics that are useful to discuss with candidates include their validated areas of competence, as well as information from the abstracts associated with each of their patents. To help you out with this further, we have also created some templates you can use. You can find them all here.
Through a unique matching algorithm, HardSkills offers a link to the recruiters' favourite tool, Linkedin. Do note that HardSkills does not create an internal chat function as most recruiters want to keep track of fewer communication channels, not more.
In the future, HardSkills plans to create links to alternative candidate systems, such as Xing, Researchgate and more specialised tools.
Linkedin is certainly one of the world's largest social media sites, with over 700 million members, but both fluctuating activity (about 50% of its members are active every month) and the fact that some people are absent from such social and professional networks by choice can make it difficult for recruiters to contact them and get a response in the desired timeframe.
To bridge this issue, HardSkills also offers a direct link to Google, that gives recruiters a chance to search for their contact details on the web.