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Set Up Automated Job Outreach

Jennifer
  • Updated

Automated outreach allows Handshake to send personalized messages on your behalf to candidates who match your hiring criteria.

 

How do I start automated outreach?

1. From the Source candidates tab on the job posting, click the Start automated outreach button at the top of the page.

Start automated outreach.png

2. Review your Must-haves, Nice-to-haves, and Criteria to avoid — the hiring criteria Handshake will use to identify and message candidates, generated from your job description. 

  • On the right, you can preview example candidate profiles Handshake will message under the current criteria.  
  • To adjust the criteria, type your request into the Ask for changes box (e.g. "Add 2027 graduation year as a must have") instead of editing the lists directly. 

3. Click the Continue button when you're ready.

Refine target audience.png

4. On the Message to candidates page, write your initial outreach message once, and let AI personalize it for every candidate. 

5. Click the pencil icon to edit the instructions that guide what the AI writes for each candidate. 

  • Click Preview to review the message generated against an actual candidate, and keep refining your prompt until you're confident in the results. 

  • Click Add follow-up message to set up a second message that sends automatically to improve response rates.

    Message to candidates .png

6. Take a final look at your outreach before it goes live. The Review & launch page shows:

  • What happens next: Messages go out daily (excluding weekends), timed to when candidates are most likely to respond; replies land in your Handshake inbox; you can turn off automated outreach at any time from the job page, or it will end automatically when the job expires or candidates are exhausted.
  • Duration: Outreach runs for 30 days by default; click Edit duration to shorten this if needed (30 days is the maximum).
  • Hiring criteria: A summary of your Must-haves and Nice-to-haves.
  • First message: A preview of your drafted message.

7. Click the black Start automated outreach button to launch.

Review and launch your outreach.png

To make changes to your outreach after it's live, pause it, or restart it, refer to Manage Automated Job Outreach.