Let me just say that it is amazing that you ask actual developers for advice. It really shows that you respect us, which is, at least for me, a very important aspect.
There is already very good advice in this thread, so I won't reiterate that.
One thing I want to add though, is to consider the time a developer has been working at the current company.
A few recruiters contacted me during the first half year of working there. In that time, my response rate was 0. Everything was still new and awesome, that coupled with a sense of loyalty, is a very bad combination for recruiters.
After 2 years, I was ready for something different. Then, chances were much higher for a recruiter to get a reply other than "Sorry, I'm not interested".
One more thing just came to me.
If you want to convince a specific developer to join a company, don't just send them the job description. This is very impersonal, since it looks like the message was sent to thousands of other people.
Describe why you think it is interesting to me and highlight the key aspects that might be interesting.
Let me just say that it is amazing that you ask actual developers for advice. It really shows that you respect us, which is, at least for me, a very important aspect.
There is already very good advice in this thread, so I won't reiterate that.
One thing I want to add though, is to consider the time a developer has been working at the current company.
A few recruiters contacted me during the first half year of working there. In that time, my response rate was 0. Everything was still new and awesome, that coupled with a sense of loyalty, is a very bad combination for recruiters.
After 2 years, I was ready for something different. Then, chances were much higher for a recruiter to get a reply other than "Sorry, I'm not interested".
One more thing just came to me.
If you want to convince a specific developer to join a company, don't just send them the job description. This is very impersonal, since it looks like the message was sent to thousands of other people.
Describe why you think it is interesting to me and highlight the key aspects that might be interesting.
Thanks a lot!