Personalized Outreach Sequence

What you'll produce

A 3-touch outreach sequence — an initial InMail/email plus two follow-ups — written to one specific sourced candidate for the Northwind Senior Backend Engineer search, leading with what's in it for them, concise and human, with a short note explaining what you personalized and why. This is the moment sourcing converts into a conversation: a great Boolean string surfaces 40 names, but it's outreach that turns one of them into a reply, a screen, and eventually a hire. Senior backend engineers with payments and distributed-systems experience are the most-messaged profile on LinkedIn and they ignore most of it — generic "I have an exciting opportunity" blasts get single-digit response rates. This deliverable proves the Topic 5 skill that actually moves your funnel: getting a passive candidate who isn't looking to actually reply. It's also the artifact interviewers most often ask you to write or critique live ("sell me this role to a passive candidate"), so a strong one doubles as portfolio and interview prep.

Instructions

1. Pick one real, specific candidate from your sourcing pool (Deliverable 2). Not a persona — one named profile (real or realistic) you could actually message. Write down 4–6 concrete facts you'd see on their LinkedIn/GitHub: current company and title, tenure, a specific project or repo, a tech they clearly use, a talk/post/conference, where they're based. You'll mine these for personalization. If you carried a candidate forward from Deliverable 2's shortlist, use that same person so the search stays coherent.
2. State your one sentence of "why them, specifically." In a single line, name the genuine reason this role fits this person — e.g., they built payment-rails infra and Northwind is building a ledger product, or they've posted about wanting more distributed-systems ownership. If you can't write this line honestly, you've picked the wrong person or the wrong angle; fix that before writing a word of the message.
3. Write Touch 1 (the initial message), ≤ 130 words. Open with the specific, personal hook — never "I came across your profile." Say who you are and the role in one sentence. Lead with what's in it for them (the technical problem, ownership, scope, comp signal), not "we're hiring." Close with a low-pressure ask (a 15-minute chat, or just "worth a conversation?"). Subject line included, ≤ 8 words, specific. If you name a comp band, it must sit inside the approved intake range (for the Northwind search: base $185–215K, hiring-manager ceiling $225K). Lead with a strong number by anchoring at the top of the real band — never above it. A number you can't deliver wins the open and loses the offer: it sets up a broken-promise close that costs you the candidate and your standing with the hiring manager.
4. Write Touch 2 (follow-up ~3–4 days later), ≤ 70 words. Add one new piece of value — don't just "bump." Surface a different hook: a concrete detail about the team, the comp band, the tech-stack decision they'd own, or a relevant engineering blog post. Reference the first message lightly; stay warm, never guilt-trippy ("just circling back" with nothing new is wasted).
5. Write Touch 3 (the close-out, ~5–7 days after Touch 2), ≤ 50 words. A graceful, no-pressure final note that leaves the door open and explicitly invites a referral or a "not now, but later" reply. This is the polite exit that protects your employer brand and keeps the relationship — passive candidates remember recruiters who were respectful.
6. Pass the human/spam test on every touch. Cut buzzwords ("rockstar," "ninja," "exciting opportunity," "fast-paced"), corporate filler, and anything you couldn't say out loud to a peer. Each message should read like a thoughtful human wrote it to one person. Keep total reading time per message under ~30 seconds.
7. Write the personalization note (4–6 bullets). For each, state the specific detail you used and why it should land with this candidate. This is what separates real personalization ("references their Kafka talk because the role owns the event-streaming layer") from fake personalization (inserting a {{first_name}} and a company name into a template).
8. Sanity-check the channel and cadence. Note whether this is LinkedIn InMail or email (and why), and confirm the timing/spacing of the three touches. Don't send all three in two days; don't let weeks lapse.

Rubric

The app's AI scores the learner's submission against these criteria and gives feedback. Levels: Needs work (1) / Solid (2) / Excellent (3). Passing = every criterion at Solid or above.

• Personalization is specific and real — 1: a template with name/company swapped in · 2: references one genuine detail about the candidate · 3: 2+ specific, verifiable details (project, talk, repo, stated motivation) woven in so it could only have been written to this person.
• Leads with what's in it for them — 1: "we're hiring," company-centric · 2: mentions a candidate benefit · 3: opens on the candidate's likely motivation (problem, ownership, scope, comp) and frames the whole pitch around their gain.
• Concise, human, spam-free — 1: long, buzzword-heavy, or robotic · 2: reasonable length, mostly clean tone · 3: tight (within word limits), warm, jargon-free — reads like a thoughtful human wrote it to one peer.
• Three distinct touches that each add value — 1: same message resent / empty "just bumping" · 2: three messages with light variation · 3: each touch adds a new hook, the cadence is sensible, and Touch 3 exits gracefully with a door-open/referral ask.
• Credible recruiter judgment — 1: wrong seniority/stack, dishonest framing, or any quoted comp above the approved intake band/ceiling · 2: role and candidate plausibly match and comp stays within the band · 3: stack, seniority, comp, and channel all ring true; any comp signal sits inside the approved band (anchoring high but never above the ceiling), the "why them" line is honest, and the pitch wouldn't embarrass you with the hiring manager at the offer stage.
• Personalization note — 1: missing or restates the message · 2: lists what was personalized · 3: ties each detail to why it should land with this candidate, showing deliberate strategy, not decoration.