Cold Contacting

“Make your own opportunity.” 

“You need a referral to bypass the resume review bot.” 

“You should find a mentor.” 

These are all things we hear when applying for jobs or other opportunities that are easier said than done. Making them happen often means reaching out, sometimes to people you barely know, with your questions expressing interest. This practice is referred to as ‘cold contacting’ and is generally echoed by groans whenever it is mentioned. Cold contacting is hard because we put lots of thought and energy into the message for cold contacting and the response rate is often very low. However, even though it is tough, one response can change your entire process or trajectory. Whether you’re looking for a job, a mentor, or just wanting to chat with someone about their experiences, this blog contains some tips on what to do, what not to do, and the results from a survey on cold contacting that was answered by recruiters, managers, people in their early careers, and even grad students.

Now I’m not saying the tips in this post will guarantee you a response, some of it comes down to luck, but they will hopefully give you the best chance at a reply.

Regardless of the motivation for the cold contact, there are some common best practices.

1. Keep it short. No one wants to read a wall of text. If someone does receive a long message they’re more likely to skim it and miss the important parts.
2. Include a call to action. Someone who is busy may not go out of their way to reply to a message when the motivations are unclear. Below are some examples of calls to action.
   1. Would you be free for a 15-30 minute chat about [insert company name here] and your experiences in the industry?
   2. I’d love to connect with you on LinkedIn to stay updated with your career.
   3. I recently submitted an application for the [insert position here] and would welcome the opportunity to discuss why I am a great fit for the position. Do you have 10-15 minutes this week?
3. Do your research. One sentence should answer the question ‘why are you reaching out to me?’ This helps the receiver of the message feel valued and that you reached out to them for a reason.
   1. I’ve always wanted to work for [insert company here] and noticed we were both [insert shared experience here].
   2. I find the work your team does on [insert task, product, or job] really interesting.
4. Pick the right person. Reaching out to an intern for a referral isn’t going to be very helpful. Additionally, reaching out to the CEO of a big company for mentorship may be more of a long shot then reaching out to a lower level employee. Instead, reach out to the person that fits your specific call to action as they will be most capable of fulfilling it. It’s important that the connection you’re trying to make is connected to, or within, the department you are trying to become more familiar with. For example, if you’ve just applied to a job posting, reach out to that company’s recruiter. Or if you need help understanding what it takes to break into an industry, reach out to someone early in their career and ask for a quick chat. 
5. Show respect. This means respecting their time and making sure if you’re asking for a favour that you’re not being greedy. Asking a friend for their opinion on your request is always a good screening.

Aside from these general tips which are plastered across the internet*, I was curious what people in the aerospace industry thought. I reached out to my LinkedIn network and conducted a very short survey on how people felt about cold contacting and whether they had any tips.

The first conclusion I drew from my survey is that people don’t engage easily. At the time of writing this blog, LinkedIn said the post got over 6,400 impressions. However, only 30 people reacted to the post, 3 commented, 5 reposted, and 24 actually filled out the survey. This post followed all the common tips for cold contacting: it was brief, had a call to action, connected with the reader, etc. and yet it still didn’t gain much traction. Sometimes this will happen to your messages, but it doesn’t mean the message wasn’t good, just that you have to try again with someone different. Perseverance is so important when it comes to networking as it can feel discouraging until suddenly it isn’t and you’re reaping the benefits of the work you’ve put in. 

The second bit of data I gleaned from the survey was from its participants. Below is a seniority breakdown of who saw my post. The blue bars are LinkedIn’s reported impressions and the red bars are the demographics of the survey sorted into LinkedIn’s demographics for comparison.

Figure 1: Demographic breakdown of post viewers and survey responders.

Figure 1. Long Description

I will admit this sample size is not large enough to perform a statistical analysis on but it does seem like people early in their career such as new grads and grad students were more inclined to engage with the survey than other seniority levels. These seniority levels also ranked highest when asked how receptive they were to cold contacting on a scale from 1-10. It seems like reaching out to people earlier in their career or those in grad school could lead to more replies to cold contacting.

Another interesting note is regarding whether you should send a CV when reaching out. The general consensus is ‘it depends’. Based on the survey, attaching a CV tends to be a good idea if the person you are reaching out to could be actively involved in a hiring process, i.e. managers and recruiters. If the recipient is early in their career they might be able to refer you for a job but likely wouldn’t do that without chatting to you first. So, maybe save sending the CV until after meeting them. On this topic, don’t let the state of your CV be the blocker to reaching out, many types of cold contact won’t require one yet and it’s always better to just start reaching out than waiting for a polished CV. 

Lastly, I asked the survey takers whether following up was okay and they all said yes! Some even said following up more than once is okay since people are busy and messages/emails get buried. Don’t be discouraged if your initial message or email doesn’t get a response; send a polite follow up and see if that gets you any further.

Building your network is an important part of navigating your career and there is no doubt cold messages will play a part. Implementing these tips will help increase your chances of getting a response and creating new opportunities. But remember, if you don’t get a response, try again. You never know what the reason is for not hearing back so all you can do is your best and keep sending those messages. Good Luck and don’t forget to check out the bonus info from the survey below!

Table 1. Summary of Survey Results

Some Standout Advice

Reading through the notes people left, here are a few that stood out to me.

1. “I actually do keyword-search my LinkedIn messages while sourcing for open positions, so it can be helpful if the person does dive into their hard skills a little bit.” – Recruiter 
2. “Please don’t use the same boring ChatGPT message I’ve gotten a thousand times. Let your personality shine through. This is rarer than you think it is. Be genuine. Be enthusiastic. Speak in your own voice” – Recruiter
3. “Approach it like you’re talking to a stranger on the street… how would you get them to stop and talk to you, how would you grab their attention if they have somewhere they need to be. Tools are great and AI is a dream, but when it comes to cold contact, I think the humanity is what’s important.” – Manager
4. “This has been studied! See 2 Hour Job Search, Steve Dalton has great tips on this” – Early Career
5. “Be friendly and think about how you would like to be approached/spoken to. If you were sent that message would you want to reply or would you be put off by it? Big thing is make sure it’s proofread.” – Early Career
6. “I think cold contacting with an impactful, clear, and right length message can lead to really great conversations – not always but sometimes!” – Early Career

*Internet Resources:

• Yale Blog for Cold Outreach on LinkedIn
• Caffeinated Kyle Blog Post on Cold Messaging
• Reddit Resource on Networking Advice
• Built By Girls Resource on Cold Emailing
• Indeed Career Advice on Cold Emailing
• Instantly AI Blog on Virtual Coffee Meeting Cold Email
• Bravado Tips on Calling into the Aerospace Industry
• Medium.com Blog on How to Email Engineers