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InMail VS. Email – What Channel Is Better for Recruiters

Sun Dahan
August 21, 2022

LinkedIn InMail and Email have advantages and disadvantages over each other. In this article, we will compare the two, from a recruiter’s standpoint.

LinkedIn InMails have a better response rate than emails. The average email open rate is 22%, while InMail can have it up to 57.5%. Saying that, if you used InMails recently, you know how easy it is to choose the “Not Interested” suggested option, so more responses don’t necessarily mean a better outcome.

So, which channel is better? There is no definitive answer to that question.

LinkedIn is the go-to place to make professional connections and ultimately find new job opportunities. With 49 million people using LinkedIn to search for jobs each week, LinkedIn is a place recruiters should be in.

Yet, when it comes to outreach, no one announces that LinkedIn InMail has outperformed its predecessor – Email.

The Pros and Cons

LinkedIn InMails

The Good

LinkedIn InMail gives you access to more people.
InMails messages allow you to contact 2nd and 3rd degree connection without sending a connection request first.
You don’t need email addresses.

The Bad

InMail is costly. It could be $5 per message.
LinkedIn has a limit on InMail messages.
You can’t send follow-ups message with InMails. If you want to re-send an InMail to a candidate whom you had contacted before, this will cost you another credit.
LinkedIn InMail is a premium feature.
Many passive job seekers do not log into LinkedIn regularly.

Email

The Good

Emails are free!
You can send follow-up emails to a candidate.

The Bad

You need to find the right email addresses. This is a challenge.
You could be categorized as spam and risk being blocked
With so many email messages, the open rate to an email from an unknown sender is low

Cold Outreach Best practices

If you want to master cold outreaches using email and LinkedIn InMails, there are a few things you need to know:

Do not spam candidates. Quality is more important than quantity.
Email candidates at the best time for them, not for you.
Use compelling and attention-grabbing subject lines.
Have a clear call to action.
Add the reason you are contacting them and make it about them! Personalize your message to connect with them on a personal level.
Short copy – shorter InMails and emails get higher response rates.
Avoid vague call-to-action.

Email and InMail – Recruiters’ Best Combo

To reach out to candidates, you want to use a combination of email and InMail in a specific order. Since LinkedIn InMail’s cost is the highest, you want to save it for last. We recommend the following sequence:

Use LinkedIn to connect with the top 20 candidates on your list. Once connected, send them a message.
Email the rest of the candidates. Follow with a second and a third e-mail to anyone who did not respond. Please note that the second and third emails are likely to generate 50% of your response.
Wait for a response and if you do not have enough response, send a follow-up InMail message.
Don’t forget that you can also call candidates.

Candidate engagement and AI

The recommendations above will not save you any time, but they are likely to help you become more effective in getting a higher response rate from candidates. However, there is a way to save you both time and money in your engagement efforts. AI technology has matured enough to allow you to automate most of your candidate engagement activities.

First, it can select candidates to contact. The result is that you save much time in your sourcing efforts and increase the number of candidates you reach for each job. This will increase your interview pipeline, without extra effort.

Second, AI can automatically engage with candidates for you. It can create highly personalized messages that would be truly relevant and appealing to the candidates. It can reach candidates with a sequence of automatic messages, using both email and LinkedIn, with a click of a button.

Finally, it can do many things to improve performance. Here are some examples:

Find out what messages work best for specific types of people
It can send messages on the best day of the week and the best time of the day. This will be based on big data analysis
It can identify response rate problems for specific jobs and recommend actions (or take them automatically). For example, a campaign may have a problem with either message open rate or job link click rate which can be tied to different elements of the campaign (for example, the job description copy)

We are just starting to explore a whole new frontier for candidate engagement optimization. AI will remove this burden from recruiters’ workload and make them more efficient and effective.