Most Placeable Candidates: Our Best Emails from 2021
A good MPC email is always a great way to promote your best talent, but the usual, ‘Check out our top talent of the week’ can often go unread. At XPG Recruit, we pride ourselves on MPC’s that are clever and fun to read – with impressive results. Every year, we have well above average open rates and are able to generate about 1/3 of our new business from our MPC’s!
Because we know others are often looking for a little inspiration, we thought we would share the approaches we find most successful:
- Be Funny
People like to laugh. And they especially like to be in on the joke. So even if you are not all that funny on your own (sorry), reference something you know is amusing. Movies or pop culture offer opportunities to tie in something a large group recognizes as humorous.
- Keep it short and sweet
People have short attention spans. Regardless of how interesting or amusing your point is, make it quickly. We could go on and on about this, but…
- Current events work, but tread lightly
Some of our most opened and replied to emails hint at a current event, but our actual message stays far, far away from anything political or polarizing.
- Take a less formal approach
While a level of professionalism should always be maintained, people enjoy casual emails. Lowercase subject lines seem to get the most attention because the email looks more informal.
Take a look at our top emails from 2021
And feel free to use any of them for your own candidate marketing! Our clients tell us they share our emails with their teams and we are big believers that imitation is the finest form of flattery.
SUBJECT: Scary good talent
Brooding over the slashed talent pool? Frightened by the uncertainty lurking ahead? Don’t hide behind the chainsaws. Jump in the running car with this outstanding talent that will deliver you to safety and prosperity.
This MPC went out at Halloween and referenced a popular TV commercial that has been playing for years. For those that recognize it, it offers a good chuckle while creatively referencing our top talent.
SUBJECT: Upcoming change to your leadership team
If you aren’t taking advantage of upgrading your talent during one of the hottest staffing markets in recent history, you may end up missing out on some incredible candidates. Could any of the leaders below help propel your team to the next level?
This play on words caught some good attention, especially because there were a lot of employee changes within many organizations this past year.
SUBJECT: Re: Your upcoming acquisition
Improve your strategic position and accelerate growth by acquiring this top talent. Included with your upcoming acquisition are strong sales skills, extensive industry experience, aggressive growth mentality, and collaborative team focus.
We liked this play on the subject line combined with the clever opening paragraph.
SUBJECT: Most recent mandate
These candidates should meet and exceed your mandate for top talent! With their focus in large account sales, account management, and leadership, they could make for a well-rounded team with a wide reach. Let’s talk about where they could fit in with your company!
We know, we know….this email danced around a touchy topic. But it created curiosity! Many of our responses were from people who were amused they had opened it and then ended up reading the whole email which resulted in our candidates sparking interest.
SUBJECT: They took a counter
“I’ve taken a counter-offer and am staying with my current company.” It’s something we hear all too often these days. Leaders are hyper-aware of the talent shortage and are panicking to keep their top performers. Our XPG Recruit team is on a 7 month streak of 0 accepted counters and proud of it! If you’d like to motivate these candidates to leave their jobs, we can help.
This was a great MPC that not only caught attention, but highlighted XPG Recruit’s success managing counters.
SUBJECT: Boosters in the Office
If you plan to boost your team’s performance, you should consider hiring one of our experienced leaders with proven results. Don’t wait until year-end bonuses become a hurdle for top talent to make a move. Happy to share additional details about our candidates!
This was a topic of interest and so it received a lot of interest from those reading it!