Sourcing & Outreach
Sequences
28 min
this section covers how to create and use sequences in ashby sequences allow you to reach out to candidates and automate emails to gauge their interest in a role sequence overview sequences allow you to reach out to candidates and automate follow ups using them for outreach can save a lot of time and increase response rates use sequences to create personalized email templates to send to individual candidates or in bulk schedule initial outreach and set time intervals for subsequent follows ups streamline and accelerate sourcing by contacting candidates from the ashby chrome extension while on their linkedin profile track email opens, clicks, and responses from the candidate's end sequences are primarily built for reaching out to leads to gauge interest if you’d like to trigger emails to candidates on them reaching a certain stage, check out docid\ mtfnbycncvnb4mtdsgeqb sequences access see the chart below for information on the permissions needed to access sequence data and enroll candidates in a sequence limited access users and those users linked to an agency will not be able to see any sequence data access role has access to view shared sequence information? can enroll candidates in a sequence? limited access ❌ ❌ agency user ❌ ❌ elevated access external recruiter (not linked with an agency) ✅ ❌ elevated access analyst ✅ ❌ elevated access hiring team member ✅ ❌ elevated access hiring manager ✅ ✅ elevated access admin ✅ ✅ elevated access admin (private) ✅ ✅ organization admin ✅ ✅ if you don’t want elevated access users to view the data for certain sequences, you can opt to create sequences with the personal access option sequences set as personal can only be seen and used to enroll candidates by you and organization admins and elevated access users who have been provided with a direct link to the sequence if only you should be able to view a sequence and it’s data, you can set the sequence to confidential creating email sequences to get started with sequences, you first need to create a sequence template the sequence feature can be accessed via sourcing > sequences from here, you can create and edit multi stage templates with customizable tokens that are used to contact prospective candidates in the ashby app or the chrome extension to create a new email sequence, go to sourcing > sequences in the top navigation bar then hit + new this will open a new sequence editor where you can add and personalize multiple emails that make up a sequence from here, you’ll be asked to give your sequence a title, determine access (whether it’s a shared, personal or confidential) and also link the sequence to a job (more about this in /#linking a sequence to a job ) once you hit create sequence , you’ll then be taken to the template editor so you can set up your stages what is a personal sequence? if you create a personal sequence, only those with the direct link to view your sequence can view the sequence data and enroll candidates in the sequence what is a confidential sequence? if you create a confidential sequence, only you as the creator will be able to view the sequence data and enroll candidates in the sequence please note confidential sequences are only available to users on the legacy plus, plus and enterprise plans template editor 1 name view and amend the name of your sequence 2 sender confirm the sender of your sequence if you have different senders for each stage multiple email addresses will show here instead of a certain user’s email address please note that you are not able to select a no reply address default {{shared email aliases}} as a sender for a sequence 3 stages all of your stages are listed here, along with when they would be sent if a candidate was enrolled in a sequence now you’ll also have a trash can next to each stage, giving you the option to delete it from your sequence 4 add stage allows you to add additional stages to your sequence 5 x error/s highlights any errors in your stages that would stop a candidate from being enrolled in your sequence 6 error when viewing a stage, tells you what needs to be added or amended on this sequence stage so candidates can be enrolled in the sequence 7 type the stage type you can set this to be an email, a prompt to send a linkedin inmail or a prompt to send a linkedin connection request more on linkedin inmail and connection request stages in sequences at docid\ qbf62 usxyctmqzhe07ha 8 send when this email should be sent in relation to the date and time the candidate is enrolled 9 from determine the sender of the email or user who should receive the prompt to send the connection request or inmail via linkedin 10 subject the subject of your email or linkedin inmail 11 body the content of your email, inmail or note to go alongside your linkedin connection request you can use additional features like personalization tokens, file attachments, and links in the formatting menu below the email body box as needed tokens are a great way to personalize the subject line or body and save time from manually editing common properties like a candidate's or sender's name or company to embed a token in your copy, click the small "t" icon (with hover text personalize with token) and select one of the token properties you can view all substitution token options at docid\ p8ax 2lzye5qh7grothr6 for more on ai powered tokens, check out docid\ ggqq4vkh ynmutuxv43ha once you exit the editor, the sequence template will auto save and you can immediately start to enroll candidates you can also return to the sequence manager at any point to edit the sequence linking a sequence to a job you now have the option to link sequences to jobs to enable automatically managing your outbound pipelines with the addition of sequence linking, your candidate leads will now be automatically moved to the reached out interview stage when candidates receive the sequence outreach message and will be moved to the replied stage when they reply be archived in the linked job when you mark them as not interested be automatically archived after a delay if they never reply to the sequence when setting up a sequence, you can link it to a job by selecting the job from the https //cdn zappy app/ac1cee9dda8c79793024020053d3fc48 gif once set up, you can configure the sequence template to adjust when candidates are archived enrolling candidates in an email sequence once you've created an email sequence template, you can enroll candidates right away the most common way to enroll individuals is from the ashby chrome extension while on the candidate's linkedin page but there are a few other locations for enrollment that we will cover enrolling a candidate from the ashby chrome extension you can add candidates to ashby and enroll them in a sequence directly from the chrome extension reason for outreach and other custom fields before sending a sequence, populate details in the reason for outreach and other https //app ashbyhq com/admin/organizational settings/custom fields?objecttype=candidate you create if you have tokens in your sequences that rely on information added into custom fields, then this will ensure that information is populated select a sequence, customize it, and send it to a candidate to send a sequence out to a candidate via the chrome extension, click draft sequence from here, you can determine the sequence template and the candidate’s email address once both fields are completed, you’ll have the options to start the sequence immediately, or review it before sending if you’d like to make any edits to your sequence before sending it, select review you’ll be able to review each stage and make any adjustments once you’re ready to start the sequence, click start if you don’t opt to send the sequence, it will be kept as a draft on the candidate’s profile so you can send it later from within ashby please note that if you enroll a candidate in a sequence via the chrome extension, this is counted as an individual sequence and can’t be edited in bulk enrolling a candidate from the ashby profile to enroll a candidate in a sequence from their ashby profile, select more > enroll in sequence and choose a sequence template from the drop down menu enrolling a candidate from their ashby profile next, the sequence editor will open and you can personalize the sequence before sending it click start 1 sequence to kick off the first stage of the sequence enrolling candidate(s) from the sequence manager you can enroll one or multiple recipients from the sequence overview page (sourcing > sequence) select a template to open the sequence manager and click enroll to open up the enrollment manager search for the candidate's name(s) in the add candidates field to create a list of candidates to enroll in your sequence existing sequence drafts will also be shown on your list once you’ve got a complete list of candidates you want to enroll in your sequence, click edit sequences next, the sequence editor will show all the template drafts at the candidate level, and you can make additional customizations before sending you can also view any issues with your sequence and opt to include an unsubscribe link in the edit stages panel on the left to kick off the sequence, click start x sequence/s stopping or cancelling an email sequence for a candidate a sequence will automatically stop if a candidate responds to one of your emails to cancel a sequence that is in progress, open a sequence template in sourcing > https //app ashbyhq com/sourcing/sequence templates and select the in progress tab next, check the box next to a candidate's name and click the cancel sequence option click start on the bulk action pop up that follows to cancel the sequence sequence reporting once you've started enrolling candidates in a sequence, ashby will automatically track email activity from their end and provide a pipeline overview to help you manage overall outreach and measure your sequence effectiveness sequence pipeline each sequence has a pipeline overview on its sequence manager page that shows all current or historical enrollments at the candidate level the sequence pipeline for each sequence can be found by navigating to sourcing, then sequences and clicking on the sequence you’d like to view ashby will automatically group enrollments into in progress, completed , no reply, or replied stages depending on their progress and responsiveness from the candidate you can also manually move them into interested if you've marked them as interested or converted if you add them to a job opening please note that candidates are filtered into these different stages based on their current state if they are marked as interested to your sequence but have been archived from the job consideration linked to your sequence, they will no longer show in the interested category using the sequence pipeline to manage sequence progress and effectiveness using the sequence pipeline to manage sequence progress and effectiveness here's an overview of all the pipeline stages enrolled these are all candidates you've enrolled to date, including those with active, completed, or canceled sequences in progress candidates in this stage are enrolled in sequences that are currently active if you need to see all active enrollments or need to cancel a sequence, this would be the easiest place to do so completed, no reply candidates in this stage did not respond to any of the emails after the sequence ended they may require additional follow up with a different email or sequence replied these candidates have replied to one of the emails in the sequence since these replies may or may not express interest, you will need to review them and manually select their interest level in the "response" column interested these are candidates whom you've determined to be a potentially good fit and have expressed interest from the previous stage these are worth nurturing especially as you consider them for specific job openings converted these are candidates whom you've added to a job opening and are in the job pipeline the number in " converted " represents how successful the sequence was in sourcing suitable candidates sequence metrics ashby also automatically tracks sequence metrics like open rate, reply rate, and click rate of any embedded links they are useful to help evaluate candidate engagement with your email sequences you can find these metrics displayed on the top right of the sequence pipeline overview page for a broader view of all sequence activity, go to sourcing > home the top chart shows weekly sequence activities for the past three months you can select from the report drop down menu to generate reports for sequences sent, sequence reply rate (% of candidates who replied), or conversion rate ( % of candidates who were converted and were added to a job) you can also view these reports at the organizational level by switching from mine to everyone clicking any chart value will drill into the candidate details sequence metrics like open rate, reply rate, and conversion rate faq is there a limit to how many recipients can be added to a sequence at once? yes, only 500 recipients can be added to a sequence at one time i enrolled a bunch of recipients into a sequence, how long will it take to send? emails and sequences sent to more than 10 candidates have an incremental delay to avoid any issues related to rate limiting once emails queued they’ll be sent in batches of 10 c an i disable email tracking? individuals have the option to disable email tracking on the https //app ashbyhq com/settings/email page in personal settings tracking is only supported on sequences and doing so will impact the open and click stats on the sequence overview can ashby automatically classify a lead’s response to a sequence as ‘interested’ or ‘not interested’? yes! this is one of ashby’s ai features that can be opted in to and enabled within early access in admin you can also set your preferences within the email settings section of personal settings you can opt to enable the automatic reply status option, disable it (regardless of the organization wide settings) or use the organization default the person who initiated the sequence will receive a notification email with the option to change the reply status when enabled the ai assistant will automatically set the sequences reply status based on the candidate’s email response to a sequence you can override this classification if needed via the set response dropdown can leads or candidates unsubscribe from sequences? we do now have the option to include an unsubscribe link in your sequence emails on clicking the link, leads can update their subscription preferences and determine whether they’d like to unsubscribe from emails about the current role and/or all future roles you can enable the unsubscribe option in the settings section of your sequence check the include unsubscribe link by default checkbox to add the option to email stages moving forward for this specific sequence candidates on clicking the unsubscribe link in an email will see the following checkbox options current outreach outreach about new roles once they’ve checked or unchecked the boxes based on whether they’d like to receive or not receive future emails, the lead can click save preference when the lead unsubscribes, an activity will be added to their profile showing that they’ve unsubscribed if you try and enroll a candidate in another sequence when they’ve unsubscribed, you will see an error when editing or reviewing the stages of your sequence, confirming that the candidate has unsubscribed this error will show both when enrolling candidates in ashby, and when enrolling via the chrome extension users can also unsubscribe or re subscribe leads and candidates from their profile in ashby, in case the lead reaches out to amend the subscription status for a candidate or lead, click more on their profile, then manage subscriptions from there, you can check or uncheck the sourcing sequences box, then hit save preferences to confirm should a candidate want to re subscribe, they can do so by clicking the unsubscribe link again in their email they can then re adjust their preferences on the following page should a candidate want to re subscribe, they can do so by clicking the unsubscribe link again in their email can i edit a sequence after it has been started? you can! if a sequence has been started and you need to make any amendments (like correcting a typo or adding additional information), you can edit and adjust unsent stages for live sequences edit sequence template for all existing live sequences and future enrolments to amend your sequence template, click edit template when viewing your chosen sequence scroll to any unsent stages and make your edits your changes will be saved automatically if you close out the editing wizard or navigate to another page in ashby, you will see the option to apply your edits to active sequences the details of the active sequences will be listed click apply edits to update the unsent stages of your live sequences if you’d only like the edits to apply to those enrolled in the future, click don’t apply once the sequences have been successfully edited, you’ll receive a confirmation message if any sequences were not successfully edited, click view detailed results to review the sequences that weren’t updated and the failure reason edit the sequence template for all /existing live sequences during a new enrolment after making edits to a sequence during a new enrolment, when starting the sequence and enrolling new leads, you will have the option to save the changes for only future enrolments and/or save the changes for currently enrolled candidates check both checkboxes to save these changes for future recipients and those unsent stages for running or paused sequences if you only want the changes to apply to this current enrolment, leave both boxes unchecked bulk edit live sequences for multiple candidates when viewing sequence data, check the boxes beside the candidates you’d like to amend the unsent stages for from there, click edit sequence please note only those enrolled at the same time can have their unsent stages amended in bulk if you select sequences from different enrolments, ashby will identify the largest group of selected enrolments that occured at the same time and the edits will only be applied to that group click edit included sequences to move forward with editing sequences sent via the chrome extension will be counted as individual sequences, so can’t be amended in bulk the bulk editor will ready the sequences for editing click edit sequences , make your changes in the editing wizard, then click edit x sequences to confirm your changes edit a sequence for a single enrolment click the actions button beside the candidate, then click edit sequence you can then make any adjustments to just the unsent stages of that sequence click edit x sequences to then confirm your changes if other candidates were enrolled at the same time, you will get the option to apply your changes to the unsent stages of those sequences too click apply edits to update the additional enrolments, or don’t apply to only apply the changes to this sequence if you opt to apply your changes to the other enrolments that happened at the same time, you’ll either see a success message or a message highlighting any sequences that weren’t successfully edited click view detailed results to view the sequences and the failure reasons to make further amendments to the failed sequences, click edit failed sequences can i resume a paused sequence? yes, you can when viewing the list of candidates or leads enrolled in a sequence, check the boxes next to the canceled or paused sequences you’d like to resume then click resume sequence , then start on the bulk action wizard the specified sequences will then continue to run if the scheduled date has passed, the next stage in the sequence will be sent immediately all follow up stages will be rescheduled to maintain the initial delay can i resume a canceled sequence? no, this isn't currently possible i s a sequence canceled when a candidate is archived from a job consideration? when a candidate is archived on any job consideration, all running sequences are canceled (even if the sequence is not linked to that job consideration) you will see a warning showing the sequence that will be canceled when selecting your archive reason in the rejection process if you don’t want to archive the candidate from a job consideration but would like to remove them from the sequence, you can opt to stop the sequence for that specific candidate more on this here please note any separate emails scheduled to be sent to the candidate (not within a sequence) will not be canceled automatically can i enroll a candidate in more than one sequence at a time? no, a candidate can only be enrolled in one sequence at a time if a candidate is already enrolled in a sequence and a user attempts to enroll them in another sequence, then they will see the following error message if the user tries to enroll the candidate in a sequence and they are enrolled in a personal or confidential sequence that the user does not have access to, they will see the following error message can i mark an existing sequence as confidential or share a confidential sequence? you can when viewing the enrollments within the sequence template, click more from here, you will be able to either share your confidential sequences with other users, or mark it as confidential please note, you will need to be the creator of the sequence to make these changes what permissions do i need to enroll candidates in a sequence? you will need to have elevated access or higher to enrol candidates in sequences if you are an elevated access user, you will be able to view non confidential sequence data and enrol candidates in non confidential sequences who meet one of the following criteria do not have any job considerations or are considered for a job or jobs where you have a hiring manager access role or higher can i view more details on a specific recipient’s sequence? when viewing the recipient list, you can click on a recipient to get more information on their sequence, including if they’ve clicked links within your sequence in each stage, opens, clicks and replies and when the next stage will be triggered