EMAIL COVER LETTERS

This month we will offer some examples of cover letters we and others use in our internet recruiting efforts. Apply these tips, techniques and examples to your future email recruiting efforts and see if you get the good results we do.

Tips

From the Intelligent Search AIRS II seminar:

· Identify yourself

· Disclose where you got their name

· Make it clear that you have exerted effort to target

· Offer to remove them if they wish

· Take pains to write a clear, professional letter

· Articulate a specific search assignment

· Present an opportunity, then ask for help, calmly

· Don’t “sell” and don’t “advertise”

I used this approach to send 1,000 messages to Sybase professionals and achieved over a 20% response within 3 business days. The responses were very targeted – virtually no unqualified candidates. The key was having a good list and sending a very detailed message of what I wanted. I built the list myself from the newsgroup lurking technique and did not post any messages in any newsgroup to get the responses. An Excel spreadsheet or Access database table is all you need to store the mailing list information – and a great mailing tool like ‘Ariel Campaign’ to do the individual mailings so you don’t look like a spammer.

This is a very simple intro letter I use. Very short and to the point. I get probably a 20-30 percent return. This letter requires some work, as I have to customize this for each person. Being customized, however, elicits a better response.

We recently saw your resume on the Internet. We are always recruiting PC/Unix/Network (substitute your job title) specialists for St. Louis (substitute your geography) client sites. Let me know if you would be interested in learning more about these opportunities. Please reply with the type of position you are seeking, your availability for interview/start date, your compensation requirements and any questions that you may have. Look forward to your reply.

Another customization feature is to create a custom ‘display name’. Usually someone’s email address is something like mark@meba.com. Using MS/Outlook email client, after you fill in the “To” line, you double click on the email name to display the properties for that email name. One of the properties is ‘display name’ which allows you to type the persons actual name in rather than an email address. I use this every time. Yes, another step but worth it.

The following letter is from my friend and associate, David Gant of Insight Technologies. His staff recruiters have used the following email to contact new candidates from mailing lists. David says that on one 300-piece mailing he has received up to 30 resumes, an excellent return for unsolicited email.

My name is David Gant; I am a Technical Recruiter with Insight Technology Group. Your probably asking yourself “Who are you?, what is Insight?, and why are you e-mailing me?” The truth is...it’s a shot in the dark. With the proper training and hours upon hours of “surfing” the Internet, I have been able to find e-mail addresses of individuals like yourself who are working hard in the IT industry. Please understand that I am not your typical recruiter and we are not your typical “chop-shop” consulting firm. My job is to find the best people in the industry and then bring them to work for Insight.

To give you a little company background, ITG is a leader in the object-oriented software development industry with experienced consultants providing mentoring, training, consulting, architectures and frameworks for developing mission critical systems. We have numerous positions open all over the US ranging from C++ and Java Developers to OO Mentors to Senior Architects.

I say that this is a “shot in the dark” because I really have no clue as to what you do. My goal is to establish a professional relationship with people like yourself in the hopes that one day we might be able to work something out with one another. It may happen in two weeks, it may happen in two years. But it never hurts to try. I greatly appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you soon. Have a great day.

Signature

Here is a sample letter from the Intelligent Search AIRS II seminar (great seminar, highly recommended).

I am an associate with a telecommunications consulting firm, and am writing to ask for your help in a set of recruitment searches I am working on. I came across your posting in Usenet, and I’m hoping you might have a perspective on my search. I am in the process of building a practice in advanced telecommunications technologies and hope to talk with as many people in the field as possible, particularly in companies that have established a leadership position in research and development like Fore Systems. Unlike an unannounced telephone call, email seems to allow the kind of passive contact that can be invaluable in business; it allows a response when it is convenient… However, I am sensitive to work priorities and if you would prefer that I not contact you in the future, or that I use a different address, please let me know.

My office is working with a variety of companies across the industry but I am primarily writing about a senior systems architect position with one of the nation’s hottest developers of ATM technology. Located on the East Coast, this group is developing multiservice adaption and concentration technologies that will enhance the company’s service architecture offerings.

This individual will be working at the Distinguished Member of Technical Staff level with the company’s major Telco and RBOC accounts to define future network architectures based on ATM and Frame Relay technologies. A strong background in object oriented technologies and knowledge of CORBA, DCE and Java are important.

Any help you can give me, in either locating qualified individuals for these roles, or potential places to look, would be most appreciated. Additionally, I would welcome an opportunity to speak with you directly if you have the time in your schedule.

Here is a letter in draft mode that will soon be polished and sent to a large number of Tuxedo experienced professionals.

I noticed your middleware background on the Web and am writing to establish a dialog. I work at Virtual Solutions where we define, design, build, test and implement large n-tier systems for major corporations.

We are looking for senior people who are interested in pursuing a technical career path leading to a deeper experience in Web, Java, ASP, C++, n-tier architecture design/tuning, Tuxedo, M3, CORBA, OO design and development, SQL, and Oracle, Sybase, Informix, MS SQL-Server.

We work on team projects, often in our own software engineering lab, with technical leaders who "lead from the front" and enjoy long term relationships. This creates a very rewarding environment where we can grow and learn from each other. Our co-founder, J.D. Hicks, writes a column for DM Review. His influence insures continuous growth on our technical career path.

The Intelligent Search AIRS II seminar teaches, and our experience confirms, that a well written letter should produce a 20% positive response, broken down as follows:

In closing…the better your email cover sheet the more and higher quality responses you will receive. Take the extra time to craft a letter using the above techniques and examples and you will get a better response to all your hard work.

Our October article contained an error. The correct URL for CareerNet is www.careernet.com.