Ready to take your passive candidate outreach to the next level? With Gem sequences, you can automate and personalize every phase of your communication with candidates, ensuring timely follow-ups and seamless interactions. Gem’s powerful features give you control over every detail — from message timing, to candidate personalization, to sender flexibility.
Overview
Gem sequences streamline your outreach by automating follow-up messages, organized into stages, that can be scheduled to send at specific intervals or at designated times. Each stage is a customizable message template, and you can add as many stages as you’d like to a given sequence. The sequence will automatically stop if any of these three conditions are met:
- A candidate responds.
- The Sequence has run out of stages and is finished.
- You manually mark a response in Gem.
Gem automates email sequences, making outreach more efficient. InMail sequences can also be managed through Gem’s platform.
Here’s an example of a 2-stage sequence:
Adding a new sequence to Gem
There are three ways you can create a new outreach sequence in Gem:
1. From your Gem homepage, select the New dropdown in the top-right corner, then select Sequence. A blank sequence template will open, featuring fields and dropdown menus where you’ll fill in details like the sequence name, type, message content, and timing preferences for each stage (we’ll guide you through each of these shortly).
2. From your Sequences page, select the + New Sequence button in the top-right corner. The same blank sequence template will open, with the same fields and dropdown menus we’ll walk you through below.
3. You can also start a Sequence directly from the Gem Chrome extension while viewing a prospective candidate’s profile:
- Navigate to the prospect’s profile (on LinkedIn, GitHub, Indeed, or elsewhere), and open up the Gem sidebar.
- At the bottom of the sidebar select Message, then Create a new sequence.
- A blank template will open with that particular candidate as the sequence’s first recipient.
Creating your Gem Sequence
Here are the fields to be filled out as you create your Gem sequence:
Sequence name
In the top-left corner of the sequence builder, enter a name for your sequence. We suggest choosing a unique name to help you stay organized and easily locate the sequence later as your team creates more outreach for different roles or scenarios.
Sequence type
Select the appropriate sequence type: Sourcing, Event, or Nurture.
- Sourcing is for cold outreach related to currently-open roles.
- Event is for keeping your talent community informed about upcoming events.
- Nurture is for long-term drip campaigns that aren’t tied to specific positions.
Outreach channel
Gem will manage your email outreach and text messages automatically and prompt you for other (manual) actions, such as sending a LinkedIn invite or making a phone call. You can seamlessly incorporate multiple engagement channels into one sequence.
Delivery time
Gem allows you to fine-tune the timing of each stage of your sequence, enabling you to tailor your outreach based on factors like the candidate’s location or your own personal preferences. You can count on Gem to automatically send email follow-ups and to prompt you when it’s time to reach out manually.
Gem offers four options for scheduling the first stage of your sequence, no matter the channel:
- Send immediately.
- Send at a specified date and time.
- Send on the next business day at a specific time.
- Send after a set duration (e.g., 6 months) at a specific time of day.
Subsequent stages can be scheduled to send a certain number of days or business days after the most recent stage. For example, you can schedule stage 2 to send 4 business days after stage 1, and stage 2 to send 3 business days after stage 2.
Subject line
The subject line is a crucial element of your Gem sequence, as it helps capture recipients’ attention. Make sure to craft a compelling and personalized subject line for each stage to improve your chances of engagement. We’ve got some best practices for subject lines in our Recruiting email outreach benchmarks and best practices resource.
Sender
Email outreach can be sent from your account or ‘from’ a teammate’s inbox. Gem’s Send-On-Behalf-Of (SOBO) feature adds another level of personalization by having outreach messages appear as though they’re coming from an influential teammate. Sending messages from a C-level or department leader can capture candidates’ attention and increase reply rates.
You’ll need to enable SOBO individually for each teammate you’d like to send emails from. To do this, go to Sender Settings in your Gem profile settings (select your profile name in the bottom-left corner of your Gem instance, then Profile settings, then scroll down to Sender Settings under the General tab). Your teammate will receive a confirmation request, which they must approve before you can send messages on their behalf.
Email body
This is, of course, where you craft a compelling message that encourages prospects to respond with excitement and curiosity. Gem allows you to personalize outreach at scale by using custom tokens, which dynamically insert details like the candidate’s name, company, or current role to make each message feel tailored.
Include the prospect’s name, at a minimum, to increase engagement — but also experiment with different tokens to craft messages that feel uniquely relevant and irresistible to your audience.
Sending multiple stages in Gem
We recommend creating sequences with three to four stages and sending them over the course of two to three weeks, as this approach significantly improves candidate response rates. Gem allows you to schedule as many stages in a sequence as you want. Timing matters — messages sent at the right time of day and on optimal days of the week can greatly impact response rates.
There are two ways to add the next stage as you build out your sequence. In the sequence builder, select + Add another stage in the left margin below the envelope icon/s, or select the Add another stage button at the bottom-left corner of your current message (just below the word and character count).
Sending InMail sequences in Gem
Gem supports multi-channel sequences, meaning you can reach out to prospective candidates over email, InMail, and more — all within the same sequence. If you’d like to include an InMail outreach in any of your sequence stages, simply select InMail from the stage dropdown.
Remember, InMail stages are manual — by default, the sequence will be paused until you mark this to-do as complete. Gem will send you an email reminder and add this to your to-do tab in Gem when it’s time to follow up.
No need to worry about logging into Gem to stop email follow-ups if a candidate replies via InMail — we’ll prompt you to confirm that no InMail responses were received before we send the next email in your sequence.
➡️ Next, you’ll learn about Custom Tokens in your sequences!
Have any issues or questions on this topic? Please feel free to contact your dedicated Gem Customer Success Manager directly or our Support team at support@gem.com.