getting interviews at top tech companies is hard one of the best ways to get your foot in the door
is to get a company referral this is a referral from someone who currently works at the company
that you're applying for and in this video i'm going to tell you how you can get them
but first let's talk about why referrals are important referrals help you get in
the door at companies while applying with your resume is a totally valid strategy
some of these companies like google evaluate hundreds and hundreds of resumes every month and
so it can be hard to stand out referrals help you do that what's important about referrals is making
sure that someone at the company can vouch for you ideally this is someone who knows you or can speak
to your skill set and experience but even if not it's helpful even to have someone in the company
who can put your name in the pile to make sure that the recruiter can look at it first
you might think that referrals are actually only important for the interview stage
but they can actually be helpful even later in the hiring decision process sometimes the hiring
committee at some of these companies like google will review the candidates full packet and they'll
include the referrals and what was said about that candidate in their decision so referrals can
be important not only for getting in the door but even for making sure that you get the actual offer
so now that we know why referrals are important let's talk about how to get them the best way
to get a referral is simply to find someone who works at the company that you're applying for
now while this might not be possible often people forget that they actually have connections with
the company they're applying for the suggestion here is to do a simple linkedin search there are
some advanced search features and will include a link to a blog post that describes how to perform
these search features in the description below where you can actually browse through and find
people who have worked at the company that you are applying for you can browse through both people
who have previously worked at the company as well as people who currently work at the company
you might be wondering why should i look up people who previously worked at the company
generally these people know people who are currently working at the company
who they can then pass your resume along to and those people can actually help provide a referral
now let's assume that you weren't able to find folks on linkedin or it's been challenging to
find people that actually work at that company there are a variety of other ways that you can
employ to make sure that you do an exhaustive search to see if you can find someone to refer you
go to your school's website or contact your school's counselor to figure out what the alumni
network website is browse through it and again do a similar search that you did on linkedin but now
on your alumni network see if you found anyone who works at the company they're applying for
or who might know someone who does if even that doesn't work try posting publicly you can post
on linkedin at a big message and say hey i'm looking to work at this company does anyone know
anyone who works there often you'd be surprised at how willing and able people are to help you
and to help connect you to someone who works at the company after you've broadcasted
search linkedin and search your alumni network also try contacting close friends in this next
section we'll tell you how to actually go about contacting these people and an effective strategy
and messaging around it that often works let's talk about three main scenarios of how you might
ask for a referral and how you should position them the first might be asking a close connection 0:03:17.040,1193:02:47.295 this is not
you to someone who available at the company that they themselves may have a close connection with
but you don't in this case what's important is making it super super easy for your friend
to pass along a message to the contact that they know the company for instance what i normally do
is i would just list out hey this is my message could you pass this along to that person and
you could write out a full message that includes more information about yourself your resume what
you're looking for and how you might be willing to help support the person with the company submit a
referral on your behalf the key here is making it as easy as possible for your friend or your close
connection to send that request to the person that works in the company you're applying to
now the last and maybe hardest category is asking someone who's maybe not even a close
connection this is often what's called a cold email or you're reaching out directly to someone
and these have a very high rejection rate but don't get discouraged what you can do is make sure
that every message that you send should be very customized to the person that you're applying to
one thing that's bad about a cold email is if a cold email is applicable to a variety of people as
in you could have sent that called email to five different people that probably means it wasn't
an effective cold email every cold email that you send should be very personalized you should
research the person and describe in detail how you have maybe a similar background connections
and why you think you'd be a really really good fit and really excited to work at their company
after you send that request i would recommend sending it to a few others because often these
don't get responded to and there's maybe less than a 10 response rate on some of these but they can
still be a really really effective way and can radically change the outcome of your interview
if you can get a successful referral so hopefully this helps you get a referral at the company that
you're looking for i know it may seem daunting but if you take these steps and try it actually
can yield a lot of success referrals seem really hard to get but with the right strategy the right
approach and thoughtfulness you can definitely get in the door at the company that you like
after the referral if you need more interview prep help of course check
out tryexponent.com and good luck on your upcoming interviews and interview process