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Outreach

Cold Outreach 101

I just applied to a job, now what?

Templates for LinkedIn cold outreach

Email has a much better response rate than LinkedIn connection requests + notes. Email is checked more often, can be forwarded to other teams, and can include a link to your resume. When in doubt, email your contact. However, if you can't find a reliable email or they seem especially active on LinkedIn, try to reach them there!

  • LinkedIn notes with connection requests

    Hey Alyse, I'm drawn to Odoo's mission and think my background in education could provide value for your data team. I would love to learn more about your path to work there. Can we connect?

    Hello Jerrard, I'm interested in Sculpt and trying to get a more realistic feel of the day to day responsibilities of a jr full stack engineer. What is one of the toughest parts about being a new engineer there?

    Hi Jasmine— I also went to the University of Utah, go utes! I recently applied to the UX Designer position at Lightz and am really interested in learning more about the company culture and role. Can we connect?

    Hi Ryan! I'm interested in your Front End position and I think my background in science & software could make me a great fit for these roles! When are you looking to start the interviewing process?

    Hello Lisa, I'm really excited about the work you are doing at Bloom Health to increase access to mental health, and when I saw you also had a background in Psychology, I had to reach out! Can we connect?

    {name} — My passions include

    1. Designing beautiful applications

    2. Building things that matter

    3. Making financial education accessible to all. I've been following SmartWallet for the past few years and love the mission. Before transitioning to tech, I worked in finance- I want to find a way to get involved with you. Even if not immediately.

    Good Afternoon Meaghan! I recently applied to the Software Engineer position at Alkami and wondered if you had a few minutes to talk about the position. Are you free for 15 minutes this Friday?

    Hi Jill! I’m really excited about the POSITION role & the opportunity to work with STACK. When do you plan on starting to interview for this role?

    Hey Kelsey, I am thinking about applying for a software engineering role at ______ and I was wondering if I could talk to you about your experience working there. I really think that you guys are changing lives for the better and I want to get on board! Would you have time to do a quick call to just talk about how you've liked it, and specifically, what it's been like to be remote? Thank you!

    On the whole, we have found that email has a much better response rate than LinkedIn connection requests + notes. This is in part because you can follow up on email messages and because email is checked more often. When in doubt, email your contact.

  • They accepted my LinkedIn request but didn't respond 😅 — now what?

    Follow up with them! You can now send a message without character limits, use that!

    Thank you for accepting my connection request! I really think I could be a great fit for the Front End Engineering role, and would love to learn a bit more about the position and what you are looking for in your next hire. Do you have time for a quick phone **call this week?

Templates to continue the conversation!

  • They replied with a general, non-committal response.

    Ask if they can hop on a 📞 or Zoom call!

    Reply to the same email thread with: Thank you so much for getting back to me, I imagine this is a really busy time, so I appreciate it! I would love to learn more about what you all are really needing in your next engineer hire. Could we hop on a 15-minute phone call this week, maybe Wednesday or Thursday? If not, any chance I could run a few questions by you here?

  • They replied and said that they aren't the hiring manager for this role.

    Reply to the same email thread with: Thank you so much for getting back to me and letting me know! I apologize for the ping out of the blue in that case! I have a few questions about this role and what the team is looking for — any chance you could point me to who would be better on the team to bother with these? Any insight you can provide would be so helpful, thank you in advance!

  • They told me I didn't have enough experience.

    It can be discouraging to receive a version of the message: "We really are looking for people with more experience for this role." Never fear! You can work with this — below is an example of a great response to this common response.

    {name} — thank you so much for letting me know. I absolutely understand that your team is looking for someone with enough experience to jump in to {company name}'s codebase and ramp up quickly. From my time building in the fast-paced world of Lambda School, I am deeply comfortable working through complicated codebases, unblocking myself, and mentoring other developers, which are all skills that I know could add a lot of value to the {company name} engineering team. Additonally, I have over 3+ years of experience in management and customer-facing roles, which feels particularly relevant to this role's client-facing responsibilities.

    Given this experience and passion, how would I be able to stay in the recruiting process for this role?

  • They told that me the role closed but to keep an eye out for future roles.

    This happens all the time! Hiring moves fast, which is the main reason we recommend reaching out within 24 hours of applying. Make it very easy for your contact to help you with those “future opportunities”. Do a quick search of their open roles, keeping an eye out for stepping stone jobs like Solutions, Support, and Implementation Engineer. Apply to those and then send the below ⤵️

    Reply to the same email thread with: Thank you so much for getting back to me and so glad you were able to find a great fit for this role! I'd also love to stay in touch regarding future opportunities at {company name}. I am also really excited about these two roles and just applied to them:

    • API Engineer {hyperlink to job description}

    • Implementation Engineer {hyperlink to job description}

    Any chance you are involved in hiring for those roles right now or know of someone who would be a good contact for them?

    All the best and thank you again for your help!

  • They said they can meet for a call! 🎉 Now what?

    First, give yourself a huge pat on the back — you just networked yourself into a phone screen, informal or not! Make sure to review the document below to get prepared for this call and make the most of it. Jump in with a coach during #job_search office hours, as well, to prep! ****

    Informational Interviews

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