Recruiting season is either already underway or just around the corner, so I thought it would be good to touch on how you can leverage LinkedIn during this process. LinkedIn is the most powerful tool in your entire career search. Read it again. You have access to over 930 million users at your fingertips. People in high power positions, people just starting out, people who have yet to upload a profile picture, you name it! I am such a firm believer in this method of what I call “cold connecting”, which is just a play-off of “cold calling”, as I am sure plenty of you are familiar with that concept. Cold connecting is when you are requesting to connect with someone you have never met in person before, they don’t know you, and chances are you don’t really know them. However, you NEED something from them, so you cold connect. On the browser version of LinkedIn, if you click the “Connect” button on someone’s profile it is going to prompt you with an option to “personalize” your invite. If you do not see connect on someone’s profile, don’t panic, just their settings. Head on over to the three dots next to their name and connect will pop up as a dropdown menu option. This personalization of the invite really makes all the difference. It is what allows this random and “stranger” connection to be more socially acceptable than a random friend request on Facebook or follow on Instagram. When your personalized invite hits someone’s LinkedIn inbox they can actually see your entire message before choosing to accept your connection request or not. The best part is, after they accept your request, LinkedIn auto-prompts your message into a chat-box for them to respond to you. This message is where you need to include three points in your note. 1) Identifying who you are/what you do 2) Who they are/what they do and 3) Why you are looking to add them to your network/connect with them. Your purpose for cold connecting can be for a multitude of reasons, but here are instances where I think it makes the most sense:
- You are attempting to connect with someone who is hiring for a role you are interested in
- You are reaching out to someone in a current role that you can see yourself in and are hoping to have an informational interview.
Let’s say I am a senior in college who has studied Software Engineering at MIT and I have the goal of working for Microsoft as a Software Engineer. Through LinkedIn search optimization, I come across Stu, who is a Software Engineer at Microsoft AND was in the same program I am in at MIT.
“Hi Stu! I’m Dustin Miller, a current senior at MIT studying Software Engineering! I see that you also went to MIT and studied in the same program and are now working for Microsoft as a Software Engineer! I would love to connect and see if you would be willing to share 10 minutes of your time with me to talk about your career path.
Thank you,
Dustin”
Again, this note cannot be too wordy, overly formal, etc because you only have so many characters to work with here. If you find yourself running out of characters, you could even cut out the part that is asking for the 10 minutes of their time up front. Just stating the shared connection of MIT/field of study would probably be enough for most people to accept this request, which then later on in a message (no character restriction) you could ask for that 10 minute chat. You’re not going to hear back from everyone and that’s okay. A bit of a numbers game, but seeking out intentional connections that can benefit you now and in the future is the main idea. It can be scary to reach out to people you don’t know, I get it. Remind yourself of this as you are reaching out…the person you are asking for help, no matter where there are at now in their career, at some point also asked others for help, for a conversation, or for a connection to someone else. LinkedIn I will say is far more of a helpful platform than other forms of social media. People are more willing to help and give their time to you than we give them credit for. Plus, can you name ONE person who doesn’t like talking about themselves or their career? People typically can go on and on about themselves because rarely are they asked to dump their career timeline out on the table. In closing, reach out, make the cold connect, grow your network with intentionality and purpose. I will leave you with some sample questions you can ask if you do end up setting that 10 minute chat with a new connection:
- Can you walk me through your career path and how you ended up in xyz position at abc company?
- What does your day to day actually look like? Job descriptions have so much information, but what takes up most of your time?
- How would you describe the upward mobility of abc company?
- Would you say there is a healthy work-life balance at abc company?
- Is there anyone else you are connected with you think I would also benefit from speaking to? I’ve really enjoyed our conversation and am always open to various perspectives.
