what's up everyone kenji here and in this video i thought i'd explain how to cold message people
so when i say cold messaging i mean either email or linkedin message somebody that you don't know
with the hopes that it will eventually end up in a job offer further down the line and in case
you feel uncomfortable messaging strangers you should know that it's something very common in
the professional world if you work in sales for instance you're often called emailing or cold
phoning people if you work in finance like say in something like private equity or venture capital
you're often talking to companies and people that you don't know the same applies to journalism for
instance where you're trying to get information from all sorts of people that you've never talked
to before so overall it's a good good skill to have not just for recruiting but for work in
general as well so i'll break this video up into four main parts firstly we'll look at finding the
relevant people in their contact details and i'll show you the two main methods that i used for that
secondly we'll look at the actual message so what you should send them either via email or
via linkedin thirdly we look at following up so what you should send them in case they haven't
gotten back to you in the first email and then lastly we'll look at the actual probabilities
so how likely it is that this will actually work and whether it's worth it for you all right so
finding the relevant people and as i mentioned earlier there's really two main methods that i
use the first one has to do with linkedin and the second one has to do with the alumni directory so
let's look at linkedin first so on linkedin you can actually filter by people to find whoever
is relevant to you so for example let's say we're looking for people that work in finance at apple
so you can just type finance apple up there in the search bar
and from there you'll go to all filters and then filter by location university
or whatever you really want to find the right people you can even filter by keywords here
and from there you can just send them a connection request and send them a message with it as for the
content of the message we'll get to that in the next section but overall this is just using the
free version of linkedin i haven't used premium so i don't really know what that's like i guess
it just gives you gives you access to some more things as well the second method is the alumni
directory and if you don't know what that means it's basically a database where it has all of
the alumni of your university so in my case for instance i went to cornell so i can look up anyone
in that database and if you don't know the person by name for instance or if you're not looking for
anyone in particular you can always look it up by company as well right and from there you can
find their contact details it's really quite useful especially because they go to the same
university as you right so that's already kind of a connection point so it's a bit more personal
than just a random stranger so it does increase your chances of actually getting a response
and obviously it almost goes without saying but if you have a friend in common with the person you
want to reach out to do make sure they introduce you it's just gonna make it a lot easier for both
parties to interact with each other and they're probably gonna be a lot more friendly as well
on linkedin this is super easy to find it's just the mutual connections area as for what
kind of companies you should be reaching out to obviously reach out to the ones you want
but at the same time do keep in mind that larger more structured companies are typically
a lot more rigid so they're not going to be as flexible or accommodating if you're say a year
younger than their internship class and so on they're probably not going to be very flexible
on that on the front and on the other hand if you go to a smaller size company then they are
a lot more willing to talk and engage with you so you got to keep that in mind and maybe if
you're a first or second year you might want to aim for some smaller companies as you might have
a bigger shot of landing something that way all right so suppose you found the relevant people
now what should you actually send them in the message overall it should be simple and straight
to the point you don't really want to overwhelm them with something that's too long at the end of
the day they are doing you a favor so you want it to be as frictionless as possible for the subject
i say who i am basically a student in this case and then what i want let's say that's learning
more about the asset management division and jp morgan for instance as for the actual message
it's structured in a way that firstly i introduced myself then i mentioned how i found them just so
they're not freaked out that i have their contact details after that i have a call to action in this
case a quick 15 to 30 minute call to learn more about the industry and their position
within say the next two weeks and i find that two weeks is a good balance between say something
that's not too urgent where they'll get stressed out and at the same time something that's not
so far ahead in advance that they'll forget about right then i attach my resume in case they want
to learn more about me and lastly i thank them i wish them well and i leave my contact details
there just in case they want to get back to me or someone else wants to reach out on behalf of them
and obviously this is just a template so it's not very personalized but if you can i would try to
add a bit more of a personal touch to it so for instance maybe you went to the same university
maybe you go to the same club same sports club for instance same business club or thirdly maybe you
go you're from the same hometown or something like that those are all things that i think are worth
mentioning just so it increases the odds of them actually replying to you if you have nothing in
common with them you can still mention something like hey i recently read an article on whatever
company they're working at and i found it quite interesting or something like that just to show
that hey you're doing your homework and you really want to try and impress them and that personalized
message is really the only part that you need to change in this template other than that it's just
changing the names and it should be good to go for a linkedin message the idea is basically the
same the only main difference is that you don't necessarily need to attach your resume in this
case just because they can just click on your bio and they'll be able to see essentially the
equivalent of a resume also do keep in mind that it does have i think it's a 300 character limit so
you got to try to keep it short so the follow-up message and truth is if you're reaching out to
people that are already working odds are they get anywhere from 100 to 200 different emails
in their inbox every day that was my experience while working in banking as well as big tech
so i think that's fairly common and obviously they don't get to read all of them some they might miss
so it might be the same with the resume where you're reaching out that's why i recommend
about sending another email in one to two weeks which is enough of a time frame for them to
get back to it in case they've forgotten and the follow-up message can be something like this
hi i hope your message finds you well and just wanted to follow up on your availability for a
quick call in the next couple weeks to learn more about your experience working in xyz industry
at xyz company then just add a quick closing and that's it it's quite simple there's no need to
have anything longer than that and as for how many times you should follow up i personally would just
follow up once so i'd have the initial message once and then a follow-up message after that i
personally didn't follow up anymore some people might say the follow-up just one more time just
in case and that's fair enough that's really up to personal preference and this brings us to our last
point which is how likely are they to respond and not gonna lie it is a lot of effort and there is
no guarantee that they will respond but there is a high potential upside right on the one hand if
they don't respond well you've just wasted a bit of time drafting their email and sending it out to
them but on the other hand if they do respond then it does lead to a an interview or even a job offer
further down the line then it's obviously worth it right so it's really a trade-off that it's up
to you to consider looking at specific numbers i'd say around the 10 response rate is most realistic
based on what i've seen myself as well as what i've been able to gather from the internet so if
you send out 100 emails for instance you'll get 10 responses now out of those 10 or that 10 percent
that's around 50 of that is likely to end up in a call so in the end you end up with five
calls now out of those what ends up in a offer or a recommendation i don't really know that
obviously depends on your performance but that's really where you want it to lie right you want
to depend on yourself not on other variables so once you hop on that call then it's all up to you
so it's not easy work but if done well it can really pay off and if you're reaching out to a
large number of people it can make sense to create some sort of an excel tracker this one i just made
quickly to demonstrate where you have the total number of emails and the calls and underneath
that you have all the relevant information and this way you can track if you have to follow
up what kind of companies are working best for this and so on and having a database like this
can also be useful once you're in the workforce in case you want to switch positions which companies
other things like that now if you've made it this far into the video i assume you are going to try
this method so best of luck if you decide to do so now if you found the video useful do leave a like
and a subscribe that really helps out and if you have any other feedback maybe some methods that
you've used in the past that have been effective do let me know in the comments i'd be curious to
know more about them that's all for this video and i'll hopefully catch you in the next one