Writing the right message to your prospective candidates on LinkedIn is crucial in getting them interested in your job. 

An InMail is almost always left unanswered when it doesn’t address the candidate and if it’s too standardised.

But writing a good message is more difficult than it looks.

Having the right outreach message templates is a great start to write outreach that converts.

These guidelines can help you write InMails that convert:

• Have the candidate’s perspective in mind while drafting your message, step in her shoes, try to imagine what you would want to receive as a potential candidate
• Include personalisations, have you read about the candidate's top skills or particular interests? Include them in your message (you can also partly automate this)
• Be clear and concise about why you reach out. After you addressed the candidate and their skills and interests, indicate what your role is, who you’re looking for and for what reason.
• Avoid asking many questions or requesting information, keep things simple and effortless for the candidate.
• Provide a call-to-action so the candidate know how she can respond.

Having a template that incorporates these guidelines helps you get on track to converting InMails.

Now you can start looking at templates so you can make a start with your LinkedIn Recruiter message.

These are some of the proven LinkedIn Recruiter message templates:

LinkedIn InMail message example 1: software engineers

LinkedIn message examples to software engineers:

Software engineers are amongst the most in demand talent in the market. Any message that seems too standardised or impersonal just will not get many responses.

Your message to a software engineer should at least include a reference to their technology of choice and refer to their top skills.

Here’s an example:

Your LinkedIn Recruiter template message to software engineers could look something like this:

Hi [first name],

I saw your extensive engineering experience (i.a. [top 3 matching skills]) on [platform]. 

Would be great to connect and get to know what you want in your next career step. 

We’re continuously looking for the best tech talent like you, like for our current [job position name] role, which can be done from [location].

Let me know if you want to talk or simply reply in short and I will follow up with how we can connect.

Kind regards,

[your name]

LinkedIn InMail message example 2: business roles

People in business roles, like sales managers, are generally communicative people. They are practical and quick in their communication. 

Longer and more detailed is not necessarily better. Short and concise messages can be much more effective than long messages in general, and especially with business minded people.

The additional advantage is that you can use short messages also as connection invites instead of InMails so you can save on your InMail credits.

A message could look something like this:

Your LinkedIn Recruiter template message to sales managers could look something like this:

Hi [first name], 

I might be the hundredth recruiter reaching out, but I thought I’d give it a try and see where you are in your career. I’ve seen your [top 3 matching skills] work and I love it. We’re a team of ten people, and the one person we’re missing is a [job position name] who can help build a scalable and feature rich product.

We are a small but quickly growing team, and would like to see if you could be part of that.

Hope to hear from you.

[your name]

LinkedIn InMail message example 3: concise and humble

Template

Hi [first name], I might be the hundredth recruiter reaching out, but I thought I’d give it a try and see where you are in your career. I’ve seen your [portfolio/code/achievements] and I love it. We’re a team of ten people, and the one person we’re missing is a [role] who can build not only [design/product/code], but also [other design/product/code].

We’re just starting out with our company, but we love to explore with you how you could help us grow up.

Hope to hear from you.

[your name], [your role]

LinkedIn InMail message example 4: light and fun

Template

[first name], imagine waking up, opening your laptop and closing it because you realize it’s actually time for a nice and long breakfast before you start your work day.

We’re an entirely remote company and currently extending our tech team. We need you (I saw your [whatever you saw from the candidate], and I’m serious when I say we need you…).

Let me know if you want to explore what it’s like to work on your own terms, wherever and whenever you want, and want to work with people who can turn out to be your best friends.

I’m here whenever you want to chat.

Yuma, co-founder HeroHunt.ai

How to personalize your message automatically

Simply put, personalization is including personal details of the candidate in your outreach message so the candidate knows you have been looking at the right information and they feel appreciated.

A simple example of a personalizations is including the [first name] in your salutation of the message (Hi John,). Another example is referring to the candidate's top skills in your message.

You can completely automate the personalization of messages by using the right tools.

Below is how you hyper-personalize your outreach messages automatically (tool used HeroHunt.ai).

More message and subject line templates

Not enough templates yet? Find some more below:

• ‍Best cold email templates per role
• Best recruiting subject lines‍
• How to create personalized message automatically

Bonus

Are you on a free LinkedIn plan or running short of InMails? 

Here’s how to send unlimited messages to candidates on LinkedIn.

And here’s 3 Hacks to recruit talent on LinkedIn without a paid account.

Finally here's a full guide on InMails.