How to Attract Developers by Speaking Their Language, Literally by @SourceBreaker

A quick and effective way of engaging techies is to talk to them in their language. While this may sound complex, I promise it’s not! You can learn how to put together an email or InMail with HTML tags in no time. Be sure to send it so that the tags are visible and the talent you’re trying to engage can look on in wonder at your coding ability!

We encouraged one of our clients to use this method, and they received 14 times more responses than from their standard candidate email methods.

Give this a couple of minutes of your time and you’ll soon be able to do the same thing. Once you’ve had a look how it works, check out the email we put together with our client that got the great response.

First, each Paragraph starts with

and each Paragraph finishes with

Each action needs to have a start and finish, and the finish always includes a forward slash in front of the HTML letter or word.

So each Paragraph looks like this. You can include multiple sentences within the ‘P’ tags, but new paragraph = new P.

Pretty straightforward so far?

Now we’ve got to grips with the Ps, we can up our game and start bolding important words so that they stand out.

In case the above isn’t clear, we wanted to set “Bolding important words” in bold type, and putting around the words you want to emphasize, does exactly that.

This is a simple intro to HTML, so we’d recommend using for any headings you need to do. When you’re ready to take it to the next level, you can check out www.w3schools.com for more advanced HTML.

One final and very simple tag is to put words in

italics

So there it is, an incredibly straightforward method of writing an email that will catch the attention of Developers, increase the chances of them engaging with you and also send your credibility through the roof.

Here’s the email I mentioned earlier…

Subject: An unmissable Ruby Developer role from a Recruiter who codes! (Kind of)

Hi Simon

I realise this isn’t the most complex code, but at least I’m trying!

As an avid football fan (your LinkedIn profile told me, no stalking involved!), I thought it worth letting you know about a role where the company Fantasy Football league is a core part of lunch time conversation.

It’s a Ruby Developer position with a very cool Digital Agency in London where building beautifully crafted websites is the order of the day. You can get to grips with trending tech such as the latest version of Ruby and SASS (who wouldn’t want to be Syntactically Awesome?!).

Work life balance is paramount here – you can work flexible hours AND work up to two days a week from home! Winner!

You’ll be surrounded by fellow programming gurus who all contribute to their communities – they’ll expect that you do the same.

The rate’s not bad either – up to £400 per day for the candidate who can demonstrate not just their ability but a real passion for code too.

Who they’re looking for

You should speak fluent Ruby, conversational Java and be multilingual across Front End tech HTML, CSS and JavaScript. A love of code above all else is key and you should be a real team player (It wouldn’t be a job email without at least one cliche but seriously, these guys are like a family!).

You also need to be able to demonstrate a flair for innovation and coming up with new ideas.

They’re not so fussed about an IT degree, provided you have a great work history and can demonstrate your abilities in a technical chat.

There’s loads more I could add but hopefully this is enough to get you interested. Sound like you? If it does, call me! This role won’t be around for long and they want you to start as soon as possible! My number is ………………. or if you prefer, just hit reply and we can set up a time to speak.

Best,

This post originally appeared on SourceBreaker.com.