Within Eploy, it is possible to canvass out or speculatively send CVs of your candidates out to a number of clients at once, meaning you can quickly and easily market your database. This guide aims to cover searching for suitable contacts, creating the mail merge & tracking the correspondence type – allowing you to see who has received which candidates CV & when.

This can be useful, particularly if your consultants are targeted or driven based on the number of CV’s they spec out – you can even set up dashboards to help track this activity.

Searching for Contacts

When spec’ing out candidates, there are two main searching tools available to help you find those who are most suitable: The Reverse Quick Match & the Query Builder.

The Reverse Quick Match

The quick match tool is normally used when you have a vacancy and wish to identify suitable candidates. However, it is also available when you start with a candidate & wish to identify Contacts who match based on their preferences.

To launch the tool, go into the Summary of the candidate you wish to spec out of the system. The Quick Match button can be found at the bottom of the page, on the action tool bar. This can be done by clicking directly into the record.

Note: Quick Matching from a preview window will only allow you to search for suitable vacancies, rather than matching contacts.

Once you have launched the Quick Match, you will have the option to find Vacancies, find companies or find contacts that match with your candidates, based on the information recorded against the candidate’s preferences.

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To begin searching for suitable contacts, switch to the Find Contacts tab. This will then allow you to search based on the Preferred Locations, the Preferred Positions & preferred vacancy types of the candidate & matches that with contacts who are assigned to vacancies that meet the requirements.

You are also able to match based on the post code radius of the candidate or any skills assigned. The final section allows you to determine where the matches are made: based solely on the contact / based upon the contacts vacancies or based upon the company/company vacancies. Using a combination of these will help you to find the most suitable contacts for this candidate.

For example, if you have a candidate who is based in Surrey & is looking for a position of Site Manager, this tool will help you find all those who have looked for a Site Manager in Surrey through your database before.

Once you have configured your search, you can use a combination of the action buttons at the bottom of the page to either View Count to see the number of records who match, or Apply to view the records.

The main benefit of this tool is that it uses the information recorded against the candidate to help find suitable contacts. However, if you need a more flexible tool, it may be worth using the Query Builder.

The Contact Query Builder

The query builder is the most powerful searching tool on Eploy: it will allow you to build flexible & layered searches of your database, whilst helping to identify specific records. There is a query builder available specifically for candidates, companies, vacancies & contacts; it is the Contact Query builder that you need to find the most suitable contacts for your spec out candidates.

To access the contact query builder, select View – Contacts – Query Builder from the Eploymenu drop down. Alternatively, you can launch the query builder from the tool bar when on the Contact Global List.

Once the query builder has launched, you will have access to four tabs: Preferences; Skills; All Fields; My Queries.

The most important tab at this stage is Preferences and should be selected as default.

Within Preferences, you can select multiple locations, position types & enter a post code search – everything you should need to identify the most suitable contacts. To use each of the drop down lists, find the option you wish to search for and click ADD. You can then search on as many different options as required; the query builder will base this on an OR search – meaning all those options will be included in the search.

Note: To remove a selection from your search, either click remove when the option is within the drop down or click on the option from the Selected field.

Once you have built your search based on your required criteria (location, position or post code), you can use the action buttons at the bottom to either View Count, which will show you the number of matched records or Apply, which will show you the actual records.

Saving Queries

It is worth noting that if this search is something you will need to repeat (as you often look for contacts with this position & location), you can save this search. To do this, once you have built the query, switch to the My Queries tab. Here, you can enter a suitable name for the query and click Save Query. The query will be available to load either from your dashboard or when you open the Query Builder.

Once you have applied the query, you can see the records that have met your requirements. However, if you are not happy with the results, you can always open the query builder to make any changes – the requirements will still be loaded into the query builder (as long as the filter is still applied) so you will be able to carry on where you left off.

Sending Mail Outs

When sending a mail out, we would always recommend loading the content from a template. This helps to ensure accuracy, avoid typos & save time when constructing the content. For more information about creating templates & using the Template Editor, please visit the Eploy Support centre.

Mail Merge to Email

Now that you have filtered for your contacts, you need to click Email / SMS on the Eploy toolbar. This will lead you to the select records filter. At this stage, any contacts who have opted out of receiving mail shots (by answering NO to the ‘OK to Contact regularly?) will be automatically filtered out of your results.

Merge to Email

When Merging to email, the Menu button allows you to configure the sending email settings. This includes the From address, the display name & the CC/BCC options. If you are loading a template, the subject will be determined by the template, but can be updated/overwritten manually.

The importance, the priority & the sensitivity can also be set here before sending the email.

Once the details have been configured, the next section is to attach any documents from your database or computer. The attachment section will allow you to use the record picker to find your candidate & attach the Admin CV. The Admin CV is an edited version of the candidates CV, based upon your template.

If you are not using an admin CV, you can choose to upload an attachment using the Attach drop down.

To use the record picker, simply type the surname of the candidate in the For box (you can change the search item to First Name or candidate ID if you prefer) and click Add. This will prompt a pop up window where you can select any matching records. The benefit of attaching the CV this way is that you will then be able to use Attach Files to then select any other these candidate files and any candidate merge fields in the body of the email.

Using the Add Attachment to Email option will prompt another record picker in a pop up window, where you can follow the same process to attach candidates.

Message Content

It’s now time to configure the email, either by typing into the text box or by loading a template. If you do load a template, be wary that the Subject field (further up the page) will be overwritten, depending on the template.

Merge fields will be available depending where you are merging from – in this instance, as you are merging to contacts, only contact/company driven merge fields will be available. This also applies to templates – if your template includes an unavailable merge field, it will be greyed out from the list and non-selectable.

Once the message content has been set up, the email is ready to send but you may wish to preview it first. Using the preview in the text editor will show the layout of the email, whilst using the preview button at the bottom of the page will show you each individual email & how they will be displayed. This is useful for confirming you are happy with the merge fields used and the configuration of the email.

After preview, you can then click Send to send the email immediately. 

Warning: There is no fail-safe when clicking Send. Using this option will immediately send the email, as long as the recipients have valid email addresses. Only use this option if you are certain you are ready to send the email.

After the email has been sent, you will have a confirmation of how many records this has sent to, as well with the opportunity to create follow up actions for those contacted records.

The next section of the action will be auto populated – the relationship. If you are setting up actions with more than one contact, the relationship will be shown as Multiple. Also, if the candidate relationship was set during the email stage, this will also be pre-populated for you. Finally, you will be able to record any additional notes against the action, which may be useful when preparing for the call & when making notes during the call. 

Tracking Correspondence Types

Finding out who has received your mailshot

Now that the mailshot has been sent, you may want to follow up with those contacts & see if they are interested etc. If you created an action as a follow up, you can use those to act as reminders (by either filtering actions or showing them on your dashboard).

However, for reporting purposes, it would be most accurate to use the correspondence type to identify which contacts received the mail out. To do this, you need to use the Contact Query Builder.

Filtering by Correspondence Type & Title

To access the contact query builder, select View – Contacts – Query Builder from the Eploymenu drop down. Alternatively, you can launch the query builder from the tool bar when on the Contact Global List.

Once the query builder has launched, you will have access to four tabs: Preferences; Skills; All Fields; My Queries.

The most important tab at this stage is All Fields, so switch to this tab & you will have access to the subtabs.

The subtabs will allow you to search for any information that is recorded against the contact record, broken down by how the information is recorded. For example, anything recorded in a free text field (company name, street, telephone, email address) will be available within the Text subtab, whilst anything within a drop down list (Contact Status, Location, Position) will be available within Options.

Correspondence Title

To search for the correspondence title, switch to the Text subtab. This will allow you to select the specific field from the resulting drop down list. Scroll down to find Correspondence – Title, before typing the title that you entered against the correspondence record. You can then click ADD to include it in your query, View Count to view the number of matching records & Apply to see those records.

Alternatively, to find anyone that has not received your mailshot, you can use the NOT option before clicking ADD. This would be really useful if you were re-mailshotting the same candidate, but wanted to avoid anyone who already received the first mail out.

Correspondence Type

To search by type, switch to the Options subtab. This will then allow you to select Correspondence – Type from the first resulting drop down list & Mailshot from the second. Then, you can use the same combination of options (ADD, NOT, View count & Apply) to view your records who have received this correspondence type.

Quick tip – To help save time and reduce the process, we would recommend using templates when sending the mailshot. This will ensure that the correspondence type is set by the template (if not, the type will remain as None), meaning you can skip creating an action & manually adding the correspondence type. This then means you can quickly search for those are receiving your mail outs, using a saved query or even set up a widget on your dashboard.

In Summary

Whilst this may seem a lengthy process, this allows you to accurately send & record you mail shots whilst leaving a complete & searchable admin trail of your work. To help speed up the process, you can follow the steps below:

• Search for contacts either using the Reverse Quick Match or the Query Builder
• Click Mail Merge, then Select All, then Merge to Email.
• Load the preconfigured template
• Click Send
• Load Query Builder
• Search for matching correspondence type.