I often get questions about how to apply for jobs, especially when you don’t have enough experience or are trying to break into an industry where you don’t know anyone.
Of course, referrals are the way to go about getting jobs. But most people will find themselves at some point where they need to cold reach out to people.
There are a few things you need to optimise for:
Where do you reach out?
Who do you reach out to?
How do you set up a system to track if the reaching out is helping?
1. Communication channels are easy; use both
You have two obvious options: Email and LinkedIn. Use both.
2. Who do you reach out to?
People often make the mistake of reaching out only to the Hiring Recruiter or the Talent Acquisition person behind the role.
A typical TA probably receives hundreds of resumes and messages from interested candidates on any given day. Getting them to pay special attention to your profile is incredibly difficult. They have been doing this for years, which makes them much less likely to be charmed
Instead, I usually think about this in two ways:
Who you reach out to depends on the size of the company (in employee strength)
1. If you are applying for an open role at a fairly large company (>1,000 employees):
Try to figure out who the hiring manager is for the role.
This is not always simple. For example, a company might be looking for a Product Manager for Search, but you may not know who exactly is hiring for that role
In that case, try reaching out to multiple people who are seniors in Product Management at the company and are likely to look after the relevant part of the business.
2. If you just want to reach out to a company and see if there are any openings:
Reach out to people who are as high up the ladder as possible.
I would suggest, in fact, reaching out to CEOs.
I’ve done this multiple times, and you’d be surprised by how many CEOs reply really quickly, even at very large companies. They’ll often immediately involve their Head of People or relevant business leader in the conversation and get you into the interview process.
Pro tip: A lot of founders and CEOs, especially at large companies, have dedicated teams that manage their emails. Their objective is often to maximise response rates and ensure important emails don’t get missed. Reaching out through this channel can create a natural top-down pressure to take a look at your profile.
3. If you are reaching out to companies with fewer than ~200 employees:
I would suggest reaching out directly to the CEO or co-founders.
3. How do you track?
Emails are king.
I subscribe to Mailsuite. You can subscribe to any reputable mail tracker. It gives me access to two critical data points:
Email opens
Link clicks in the email
So now, if I send an email:
1. I can track if my email was opened or not.
If it wasn’t opened, there is probably something to improve about your subject line, timing, or who you are reaching out to.
2. I can track if my resume was opened.
Share your resume as a Google Doc link. It’s easier to share across people and, more importantly, lets you track how many times the link was clicked.
If people are reading your email but not clicking on your resume, you probably need to improve the content of the email.
3. I can track if my resume was actually viewed.
If someone clicks through to your resume but you don’t get a callback, it’s likely that your resume itself needs improvement.
The key here is that you’re no longer blindly sending hundreds of applications. You’re building a funnel and figuring out where you’re losing people.
4. What should be in the email?
I often see people writing long-ass emails that nobody is likely to read.
Keep them as short as possible.
For example:
Hi XYZ,
Hope you’re well — I’ll keep this brief.
I have ~X years of experience working in ABC at YYY. I enjoy building Blah-Blah and am strong with data.
Sharing my Resume (Hyperlink here). I would love to explore roles where I could add value at XYZ.
Thanks a lot.
Best,
Note: Short emails work well when you want to play with volume. But if there are a few companies you really want to work at, I’ve also seen people put together elaborate emails, projects, or slide decks and I’ve seen quite a few success stories come out of that approach.
The important thing is to optimise your effort based on how badly you want the opportunity.