Outreach Guidelines

These are the rules for outreach to candidates on Paraform. They cover how to represent yourself and the company you're sourcing for, how to communicate professionally, and how to respect the candidates you contact.

For general Paraform conduct, see Paraform Ground Rules. For craft-level advice on writing outreach that converts, see Writing Effective Outreach.

The core rule

Every candidate you submit to a role on Paraform must be opted in and interested in the role. Paraform automatically notifies candidates when they're submitted so they can confirm interest, but the responsibility to confirm with the candidate first is on you.

Representing yourself

You're a recruiter on Paraform, not an employee of the companies you're sourcing for. From a legal standpoint, companies hiring through Paraform have a recruiting agreement with Paraform — similar to how Airbnb hosts have an agreement with Airbnb, not with their guests. This arrangement lets Paraform mediate situations and handle liability cleanly for both sides.

What this means for your outreach: don't describe yourself as working at the company. Instead, frame yourself as partnering with them. Examples:

• "I work with early-stage VC-backed startups in the [industry]..."

• "I'm working with [company]..."

• "I'm partnering with [company] through Paraform to help them find a founding engineer..."

Recruiters who are transparent about being on Paraform and working with early-stage startups consistently get better candidate responses than those who try to imply they're internal at the company.

If you're worried about the candidate discovering Paraform and self-submitting: don't be. Paraform tracks when a candidate was contacted, saved, or submitted by you, and duplicate or self-submission scenarios resolve in your favor. See Candidate Ownership. Paraform is also not designed for candidates to sign up directly — we vet every recruiter and talent professional individually.

Communicating professionally

When you reach out to a candidate, you're representing the company's employer brand. Hold yourself to the standard a thoughtful hiring manager at that company would.

Avoid:

• Misspelling the company name. This happens more often than you'd expect. Siro isn't Ciro; Character AI isn't Character Artificial Intelligence. Double-check against the role overview before you send anything.

• Typos and grammatical errors in the outreach message itself.

• Low-quality messages that don't meet the bar a reasonable hiring manager would send from their own inbox.

• Incorrect or speculative information. Only share details that the hiring manager has provided. If you're unsure about something, don't guess — open Client Chat from your dashboard and ask the hiring manager directly.

Most of what you need is already on the role's page. Re-read it before messaging the hiring manager.

Unprofessional conduct — whether reported by the company or flagged by Paraform — can result in rescission from the role or account suspension. See Maintaining Proper Quality on Paraform for the full picture.

Respecting the candidate

Prioritize candidate experience, especially when delivering bad news. If you're communicating a rejection, be respectful of the candidate's time and thank them for their interest in the role.

Most rejections happen because the candidate isn't the right fit for this specific role — not because they're a bad candidate overall. Frame it that way. Candidates remember how they were treated, and a professional rejection keeps the door open for future roles where they might fit better.