Chat with a recruiter last week changed how I think about cold messages

I talked to a recruiter at a coffee shop near Ponce City Market and she said she deletes any LinkedIn message that starts with 'I hope this finds you well.' She gets like 50 a day so she looks for something specific in the first line. Made me rethink how I hit up people for networking events. Anyone else gotten feedback that made you rewrite your whole approach?

4 comments

4 Comments

sam_cooper16h ago

Man that recruiter was brutally honest but she did you a real favor. I got similar feedback from a woman at a tech meetup in Austin who told me my intro messages made me sound like I was copy pasting the same thing to everyone. Hit me hard because I thought I was being polite but I was just being boring. Now I always mention something specific from their profile like a project they posted about or a talk they gave. It takes more time but I actually get replies now. Have you tried leading with a question about their actual work instead of a greeting?

alex82015h ago

Yeah @sam_cooper totally nailed it with that question idea. I started doing that a few months ago and it feels way less robotic. Instead of "Hey great profile" I'll ask something like "What got you into that project with the thing on GitHub?" The replies actually feel like conversations now not just awkward sales pitches.

craig.parker14h ago

Little things like tone and timing matter too, I've noticed. People always talk about the first line but nobody mentions that if you message someone at 7pm on a Saturday they're probably not in a work mindset and might not respond. Tuesday morning at 10am is way better for hitting up a recruiter or someone you want advice from. Also the whole "thanks for connecting" thing is just noise, get straight to why you actually reached out otherwise it reads like a form letter.

skyler_kelly698h ago

Used to think timing was overrated. Honestly thought if your message was good enough it didn't matter when you sent it. Then I tested this on a few people I was trying to network with. Night and day difference. Saturday night messages got ignored almost always. Tuesday morning ones actually got replies. Feels dumb to admit but I was wrong about it. This whole thread is making me rethink how I approach people online completely.