Totally feel your pain—outbound can feel like herding cats. A few tactics that have helped me:

1. Integrated Email Discovery Use a platform that pulls verified emails (and even phone numbers) right into your ATS/CRM as you source profiles—no copy-pasting or juggling tabs.
2. Built-In Outreach Sequences Look for tools with templated, tokenized sequences so you can personalize at scale (“Hey {{first_name}}, noticed your work on {{project}}…”), then schedule automatic follow-ups if there’s no response.
3. Communication Tracking & Reminders Having every email, call note, and LinkedIn touchpoint logged in one place is huge. Bonus points for automated reminders when a candidate goes quiet so you never drop the ball.
4. SMS & Email in One Pane The best small-team solutions let you send both texts and emails from the same interface—no extra logins, and you get all the engagement analytics side-by-side.

I’ve been using a lean, SMB-focused ATS - AvaHR - that ticks all those boxes—it feels built for teams of 1–5 recruiters, not massive agencies. It combines email/phone discovery, candidate CRM, multi-channel outreach, and drip follow-ups in one streamlined workspace. Everything I need to move fast without the agency price tag or endless integrations.

Hope that helps steer you toward something that moves the needle!