Cold email for recruiting agencies. How we fill 30 roles per month

recruiter_cold · 2026-04-11 · 2,890 views

We run a recruiting agency and cold email is how we fill 30 roles per month consistently. The trick is running two completely separate campaign types with different goals.

Campaign 1: Candidate outreach. We source candidates for open roles by cold emailing qualified professionals. The subject lines are hyper specific: 'Senior DevOps Engineer, $180K base, remote' or 'VP Marketing, Series B fintech, $160K+equity.' People open these because the role details are right there. We don't waste their time with vague subject lines. The email body is short: who we are, who the client is (or a blind description if confidential), and a one-line ask to hop on a 10 minute call. Reply rate on candidate outreach: 8.3%. Candidates respond well to cold email when the role is relevant and the comp is stated upfront.

Campaign 2: Employer client acquisition. We cold email hiring managers and talent leaders at companies we want to recruit for. Completely different angle. We lead with our time-to-fill metrics: 'We filled 4 DevOps roles in 18 days for a similar sized fintech.' We mention our industry specialization and our sourcing methodology. Reply rate on employer outreach: 3.7%.

We run 40 PuzzleInbox inboxes total. 25 dedicated to candidate outreach, 15 dedicated to employer acquisition. The domains and sender personas are completely separate. Candidates see recruiter names. Employers see business development names.

Cold email is the perfect channel for recruiting because both sides of the market (candidates and employers) are reachable via email. No other channel gives you this dual-sided reach at this cost.