The agent's first draft is a starting point. The best-performing sequences in Betterleap are short, specific, and sound like the recruiter who sent them.
The first email
- Under 120 words. Nurses read email on a phone between shifts.
- Say the unit, the shift and the pay if you can. "Night-shift ICU, 12s, $58 to $65/hr" gets replies; "an exciting opportunity" doesn't. Pay ranges in the email also mean fewer replies asking for them.
- One ask. "Open to a 10-minute call this week?" Not a link to apply, not three questions.
- Name what you saw. The search matched them for a reason: a certification, a specialty, a location. Say it.
- Sign as a person. Your name, title and phone, from your signature or the sender variables.
Subject lines
Short and concrete: "ICU RN, nights, Pasadena" or "{{first_name}}, question about ICU roles". Avoid urgency words and anything that looks like marketing. Test two and compare open rates on the Sequence tab.
Follow-ups: where the replies come from
Most replies don't come from the first email. Across Betterleap sequences, the third and fourth emails are usually the ones that get answered: a clinician sees the first one between shifts, means to reply, and does when the follow-up lands. So the best practice is to add follow-up steps, not trim them. Keep the agent's draft, and if you're editing, add a step rather than remove one.
Keep follow-ups in the same thread, a few business days apart, each short and with a fresh reason to reply: the pay range you didn't mention, the unit or shift, a line about the team. Don't just "bump". The last step can close politely: "If the timing's wrong, no problem; I'll leave it here." That one gets a surprising number of "not now, but in March" replies.
Signature
Set it once in Settings → Email sending: name, title, phone, three or four lines. A working phone number in the signature is the second most common reason a candidate replies.
Frequently asked questions
Should I use plain text, HTML or HTML blocks?
Each has a job: plain text reads like a personal note, HTML lets you format and add images, and HTML blocks give you a branded, designed email with your logo and buttons. See Plain Text, HTML and HTML Blocks for when to use which.
How long should the sequence be?
Longer than you'd think. The agent sets the number of steps from the search; if you change it, add follow-ups rather than remove them, because the third and fourth emails usually get the most replies. Each step shows its own reply rate on the Sequence tab, so you can see where yours land.
Can I see which step gets replies?
Yes, each step shows sent, opened, clicked and replied once the project is running.