Automation Outreach That Candidates Don’t Hate

We’ve been banging on about automation for years, and while it’s easy to set up candidate outreach automation, making sure you’re not adding to the noise is crucial. Don’t get us wrong, automation is one of the fastest ways to repeat business tasks without burning into precious time.

But there’s a fine line between the right amount of contact and too much. If your sequences feel robotic or relentless, you’ll get ignored or blocked.

So what’s the solution? Be clever with your targeting and your intent. Only send messages to candidates that offer a meaningful step forwards.

Start With Purpose

Before you begin with recruitment automation sequences, you should ask yourself two questions:

1. What are you trying to achieve with this sequence?

2. Who belongs in your messaging?

When thinking about what you want out of your sequence, think about what you want the candidate to do. This could be anything from updating their CV, confirming their details are up to date, or even booking in a 10 minute screening call. Not all actions need to be so tangible either. Sometimes your goal could just be to warm up dormant candidates.

Secondly, think about who you’re targeting. You can refine candidates by location, employment status and last activity to create more personalised candidate messaging. And if anyone replies or books a call, they should come out of the journey.

Your purpose should be clear for your automation outreach to resonate with the candidate. If not, you’ll be messaging for the sake of it and risk losing them long term.

Keep It Human

While automation itself is fairly robotic, it’s never been more important to retain that human element, especially with the capabilities of generative AI.

Automation is supposed to support the next human step in your process, whether that’s nudging candidates towards a call or an interview. It’s not meant to count as an activity in its own right.

If you consider that every touchpoint should add value, then if this isn’t possible with the next step, don’t send another message. Keep the recruitment process human, even if you use AI to help you craft something. Would this message be something you’d say in person to a candidate? Does it sound like you? Are you saying anything at all?

Candidates appreciate honesty and clarity in the recruitment process and anything you can do that reinforces this in a natural way starts to build trust. Personalised candidate messaging won’t feel robotic if every touchpoint adds value.

Two Practical Examples

Perm Roles

This automation focuses on discrete opportunities. It will have 4 touchpoints across 14 days.

Day 1: Email

Job role snapshot matched to the candidate’s skills and/or location.

Two simple actions for them to take: “Interested” or “Not now”.

Day 3: Phone Call 

If they opened or clicked on the email, call them up. It should be a short, targeted call.

Log the outcome and a Next Action against the Candidate/Job within Bullhorn.

Day 6: Email

Provide the candidate with new information.

Focus on things like the hiring timeline, salary confirmation, or team context.

Day 10: LinkedIn InMail

I noticed you viewed the details about the role. Here’s two reasons this might be a fit for you.

Keep it brief and specific.

Day 14: Email

Close the loop. This might not have been the one, but the process isn’t over.

Confirm their invite preferences based on role type, locations, salary, so future outreach stays relevant.

Contract Roles

This automation focuses on time-sensitive contract roles and features 4 touchpoints across 5 days.

Day 1: SMS (opt-in only – respect candidate consent and GDPR)

Send first thing in the morning, detailing the shift, the rate, the location and the start date.

Provide a single link for a quick reply.

Day 1: Email

In the afternoon, email over the full details, plus a compliance checklist reminder.

Invite the candidate to join a standby availability list.

Day 3: Phone Call

Prioritise those who opened/clicked on the email. Confirm their requirements.

Log the Note on the Submission within Bullhorn.

Day 5: Email

Confirm if the role has been filled.

You should then offer an availability form for upcoming shifts.

Fix Your Messaging

Across these recruitment automations, the tips remain the same. Each step needs to be earned from the last one, leading into it with a natural progression.

Even when you’ve got that down, the effectiveness of your messaging can be affected by how you’re saying it.

1. Avoid using the same messaging across multiple channels.

What you’re trying to do is add new information or a different action. Using the same messaging feels like harassment.

2. Don’t just set and forget about when your automations are running.

You need to respect different time zones for candidates and their states preferences. Avoiding out of hours nudges can also help.

3. Respect the “not now” option.

If candidates respond by saying now’s not a good time, add a snooze branch (e.g., 45 days) and tag the reason. This helps inform future targeting.

4. Automation ≠ Activity.

Instead of treating automation as activity, count the human actions that you’ve taken off the back of these. Performance conversions should only go by number of calls, interviews and submissions.

What Automation Should Do

In recruitment, candidate outreach automation is all about making your life as a consultant easier. It should feel like a helpful nudge from a thoughtful recruiter. Being timely and relevant matters most for time-sensitive contact roles, and this simply increases the chances that they’ll perform the action you’re requesting.

Start with purpose, narrow down your audience, then add value to every touchpoint. Once in place, measure how effective outreach is becoming. If things aren’t looking right, then adapt your automations as necessary.

The end goal for automation is fewer messages and more conversations with candidates, with a stronger brand that people want to be a part of.