The thing is... if you are a recruiter, head-hunter, sourcer or a hiring manager it would be a total waste of time for you to do a simple keyword search, select all on your results and send out an email. In fact, not only is it a waste of time, but it can hinder your credibility as a recruiter. In this instance: poaching a candidate from a competitor.... when done poorly, just makes for office fodder!!
To all the newbie recruiters, sourcers and up-and-coming headhunters:
1.) Do your homework PLEASE! If you poach someone for a job, at least make sure they actually have a background in the job you're poaching them for. Nothing is more off-putting than when you get an inmail for a job in payroll and you are in fact not a payroll professional. (You wouldn't want me in payroll, not a numbers person. Trust me on this!)
2.) Poaching should not be sending an 8 paragraph email, because a 2 paragraph email should suffice. You don't want to waste the person's time before you even know if they are interested and if they have to sift through all the mumbo-jumbo to figure it out.... they most likely will not bother!
3.) It would be wise to summarize the following things:
- Who you are and your company
- The position title and key qualifications you are seeking (making sure they match your candidates background)
- Why the opportunity is exciting (your pitch or elevator speech)
- Why you are sending them an invite to discuss further
- Your contact information (beyond just responding through LinkedIn)
4.) Double check your grammar (although we are all guilty of this occasionally), spelling and the actual name of the person - because getting their name right is essential! Let me repeat - get. their. name. right.
I am done venting now... but I had to "go there" because having 4 instances in 2 months was weird and frankly I was starting to question who was schooling these newbie peeps on poaching!?
The actual inmail that pushed me far enough to blog about it included a wrong spelling of my name, a position I clearly would not be qualified for and never left me with the person's contact information in case I wanted to actually call them back. Just saying...
I couldn't agree with you more. LinkedIn inmails are very powerful but sometimes, inmail power is abused. The question is...did you respond to the person that spelled your name wrong?
ReplyDeleteI did respond to inform him that his inquiry was not appropriate to my background and ended the response with "by the way - my name is Crystal". One would hope that would be a learning experience but our society rarely reads everything, so he most likely deleted it before he read the full response (or reflected on my response).
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