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How Do You Approach A New Candidate For The First Time About A Job?

What do you open with when approaching a candidate for the first time, trying to get them interested in the new job your client/line manager has given you?
Salary? Opportunity? Location? Company? Project content?

And how exactly do you do this?
Do you send them job details  via email? InMail? Text? Voicemail? Tweet? Facebook?

Do you call them first?
(Always my preferred method.)

And how often does your method work?

This is a great question for recruiters everywhere, and came via Jeremy Roberts on a Sourcecon a hangout I watched yesterday. There isn’t a defined answer of course, because there are always different variables that could affect your initial approach - for example, timing is always a major factor.
I thought I would answer it from my perspective as a recruiter. Feel free to tell me how you prefer to do it in the comments below.
As I said above each situation is different, and all of you will have a slightly different approach, here is the way I like to approach reaching out to someone for the first time (they are not a candidate yet because I have never spoken to them before).

  1. My first aim is to find a phone number where I can reach them on. I always try and make contact via a phone call wherever possible.   So I will quickly check LinkedIn and then using Connectifier, 360Social or another Chrome browser tool extension to quickly see what other social profiles they have. These could easily reveal phone numbers or at least a personal email address. But the bare minimum I need for this is where they work - I can call them there if necessary.
  2. From stage 1 I will now have some info on my target person, even if it was just tweets, updates, bio info, blog, who I am connected to them via etc. This is useful in the subsequent call.
  3. <Call > I am always open with the person I am calling, declaring why I have phoned them. I vary the opener depending on the role I am recruiting for, but I never lead with salary or company name. My primary objective is in gauging their level of  interest for a further chat (maybe outside work hours). Q&A time!
  4. The next question is what do you send them following the call- the full job profile?
    Not for me at this stage, unless I have had a good conversation and sense that they are seriously interested. I create a short email that I send out to follow up the call, that contains the headline details about the role. I always personalise this with content from the conversation we have just had.
  5. Follow up call to qualify interest.

So how do you approach the first contact with a prospective candidate?

Are you still LinkedIn searching and just sending bulk InMails, hoping some people will bite? Or have you gone social and tweet them,  Facebook message them or reach out via their GMail via Google+?

Be brave and share what approach works for you below.

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