These are thought dumps from my recent hiring experience.
I went through 300+ job applications manually over the last month or so, when I posted about openings on my team. (link). I had assumed, in this market candidates would have reached a certain level of “applying / cold outreach maturity” and was surprised. So decided to share the following guidelines on linkedin.
- Don’t give up on LinkedIn and Referrals. Does not hurt to reach out to the hiring team / close partner team if you can find the right folks. I’ve learnt that conversion / getting responses back is difficult (hiring managers need to do better) but maybe even one response could do the trick for you.
- If you’re reaching out cold : optimize for the right action (reviewing your profile / sharing your resume with the right team) vs more friction generating / time consuming actions (setup a time to chat about the role, help with feedback on resume). The latter is a good secondary action but not at the expense of the first.
- Please include your resume in your DM. It’s way easier to move quicker it if it’s a good fit vs following up with you and asking for it (adds 2 steps to the process and each one counts). I assumed this was well known but I’ve gotten more than 30% of direct outreach where I had to follow up asking for a resume/updated linkedin.
- If you haven’t attached your resume, please have an updated linkedin profile that can communicate all key info.
- A short blurb about how you are a good fit always helps if we haven’t worked together in the past. (Does not have to be a full blown cover letter – please preserve your energy)
- If you’re reaching out to the hiring manager directly, depending on the company does not hurt to pre-apply and let them know so they can find you in their HRIS. (this also depends on the company).
