My coachee Sarah reached out to me a few weeks ago. She told me that after months of searching and applying, she finally started at a new job! “It’s a small company with only four employees.” She said. Having found the company on a Slack group promoting their bootcamp, Sarah called them and told them she needed actual job opportunities, not more courses. They ended up hiring her as a data scientist and software engineer.
“So you were right, it’s all about networks!” I asked her if I could share this piece of advice with other jobseekers, she said “And please tell them, I wish I would have never wasted time applying for job ads through LinkedIn. It was completely useless.”
Sarah’s story is only one of many, many that I’ve heard in the countless creative ways people have landed jobs outside of LinkedIn. You probably also hear these stories from time to time, but wonder if it could ever happen to you?
Yes.
Yes, 100 times over.
Yes, it absolutely can. And it is never too late to start now.
In fact, having worked both as a recruiter and a job search coach, I created a 3-step guide to networking your way to a job — the why, the how, and the who. And no, ditch that picture in your mind of walking up to people to “network” in a conference hall, handing out business cards; networking just means connecting with people in a professional way. You definitely can do that anywhere where there’s internet!
Why would they want to network with me?
Companies are always looking for talents. They spend so much money every year on one of their toughest challenges — hiring. They post in all kinds of job boards and work with expensive HR software. They also create referral bonus programs, which can give the employee €500, €2000 or €5000 in cases I’ve seen.
Which means, these employees in your dream companies should be motivated to speak to you. Wouldn’t it be great if an amazing future teammate fell from the sky alongside €5000?
Last but not least, even if the employees are not willing to give you a referral, a lot of them are still willing to have a chat with you and tell you more about the company. Those valuable information will also better help you craft an outstanding application catering to the company’s needs. At the end of the day, hiring is a matching process. What you can offer matches to the company’s business needs, and what the company can offer matches your career needs.
Ok, I’m ready to reach out. Who should I reach out to?
This will differ a lot from company to company, most likely depending on their size and their recruitment process. Many people go straight for the HR person/recruiter for questions — not something I would suggest doing. You will meet super helpful and responsive HR/recruiters, but unfortunately they most likely will not have time. Technically our job is to “gatekeep” these positions, so I don’t think reaching out to them will get you many satisfying answers.
If your goal is to either know more about the role or get a referral, your better bet would be the other two key parties in the recruitment process — the hiring manager, and the potential teammates (working in the same team).
The hiring manager is typically the head of the department or the manager of the team. In a small company it could just be the CEO or other C-levels. In most cases, they are people with “Manager”, “Head of”, “Director”, “VP” titles.
The potential teammates are usually peers from the team this role is in, so they could be other engineers or designers at various seniority levels. They can also be peers from teams that closely collaborate with this role. For example, when I was applying to a business development role, the job description said this person would work closely with the product manager. So I reached out to the product manager there and managed to get a coffee chat with her.
What do I write?
Two principles to follow here — be friendly, and be clear.
Remember that these employees are people. They probably have a lot of stuff going on. Be considerate and friendly! Address them by their name or even briefly mention something interesting on their profile. Don’t use a generic “hello, I’d love to connect”
Secondly — this is what most people don’t get — is that you need to be very specific and clear about what you want from them. Many industry professionals are generally quite open to making meaningful connections and helping people, but know that we are also bombarded by tons of LinkedIn connection requests everyday. I don’t even get notifications for each new request anymore. Most requests we get either have no message or very generic messages.
A good example could look something like this:
“Hi Annie, saw that you organized a D&I event in August! I’m a D&I advocate myself and I’m actually applying to this role at ACELR8. Would you like to get a 15 min virtual coffee? I’d love to hear more about the work you do at ACELR8.”
If you want a referral from them, go ahead and ask for a referral! Something that I’d write:
“Hi Annie, saw that you organized a D&I event in August! I’m a D&I advocate myself and I’m actually applying to this role at ACELR8 and would love to get a referral from you. More than happy to jump on a call to explain why I’d be a good fit, what do you think?”
Thirdly, you can already try offering value to the person you are reaching out. If you are applying for a marketing role, write an example of a social media post for them and link it in the reach out message. Link a few pieces of industry updates. If you are a web developer, do a quick review of their website (real story, it worked). If you don’t know what to offer them, just ask “what can I do for you in return?”
It’s not just luck, it’s consistency and authenticity
Networking to a job is no magic. With a structured approach, you simply need to reach out to people consistently and present your authentic self. Open up that Asana or Trello board (even better, use a personal CRM)and set clear targets for yourself. Start with finding 5 people to reach out. If for example after a week, only 1 out of 5 people replies, reach out to 3 or 4 more people.
Don’t be discouraged by a “no”; if it doesn’t work, then nothing about your situation has changed. But if only one person gives you a referral, you could land your dream job. At the end of the day, you only need one job to make it work.
