Networking with Strangers

Kramskoy_Portrait_of_a_Woman

Pretty much everyone I know is on LinkedIn – but not too many of them (including me) are using it to actively develop and advance their careers. Jorge is a friend of mine who has become expert at leveraging the platform to network with people in his field – even when they are complete strangers. From this, Jorge has gained valuable industry connections, access to professional groups, and at least one job. I interviewed Jorge about how he does it.

LinkedIn has a number of different features and tiers. Which tier do you use, and how do you use it?

I have LinkedIn Pro; I pay for the lowest tier (about $30/month). I started paying so that I could see the complete profiles of people who I wasn’t connected to but was interested in.

How developed is your personal LinkedIn profile? How often do you update it?

I’ve written a lot on it, it’s pretty complete. Is it relevant and searchable, am I using the right key words? I don’t know. But the first thing anyone would do after getting a message from someone on LinkedIn would be to look at the profile of the person, so obviously it’s important to have your profile look fairly polished.

Can you walk me through how you go about finding and contacting people? What do you ask them?

It’s pretty simple. If I’ve poked around their profile and want to know more, I’ll simply shoot them an email telling them a bit about myself, and briefly explaining why I’m contacting them.

For example, the first cold email I sent was in 2009 to an alumni from my grad school in DC who was working at a company that I was interested in. I explained that I was also an alum, my interests and background, and that I wanted to know more about where he worked. I also asked him specifically if he’d be willing to connect me to a professional group that he was a part of. He replied immediately and we met up shortly thereafter, and he referred me to the group that I was interested in. That didn’t lead to any concrete job opportunity for me at the time, but I left him with my resume and I stayed in touch with him. Later, when a position opened up at his company, I contacted him again and asked him if he’d be willing to personally pass in my application. He agreed and I got an interview.

What kinds of people and companies have you reached out to?

I’ve mostly limited my inquiries to very specific companies that I admire or want to learn more about, or to people in my field, which is fairly specialized. The industries have ranged from education, to tech, to petrol companies.

How do you decide who to contact? Do you aim for the person with the most power, who is presumably pretty high up, or for people who might be less powerful, but have more time and willingness to meet?

It depends on what sort of intelligence I was able to do beforehand (through LinkedIn, of course, hah!). If it’s clear in their profile that they are in a top-tier of their organization, then I would look at who seems to be a peer of theirs to see who is the closest match for my interests. The people I tend to contact are those with the jobs I want, not the people with the power to make hiring decisions.

A lot of people freeze at the thought of reaching out to someone with whom they have no personal connection. Were you uncomfortable with it at first?

The first time, probably. But I talked myself into it, because the worst thing that happens is that they don’t reply. That first email was probably all over the place in terms of what I wrote, but since then I’ve gotten better at it. Now it’s not a big deal to me. And personally, I’ve had a very good response rate. When people do respond, it’s almost always to agree to talk. If they don’t want to talk, they usually don’t respond at all. Occasionally people contact me, and I try to always respond to them. That’s the purpose of the platform, right? It’s not only to gather intelligence, it’s to make professional connections. If you’re going to be on LinkedIn, you should participate in the community.

Do you have a basic script that you use – and modify appropriately, of course – with each person you write to?

Not exactly, although my approach is pretty much the same each time: explain a bit about myself and where I see our interests or experience overlapping based on what’s in their profile – whether it’s working in the same industry, areas of interest, or geography, or what. And then I try to ask them a specific question, such as how they managed a particular career transition. It’s important to make yourself brief, relevant, and accommodating. I don’t have a template, although I do have a few basic sentences about myself that I include in most emails.

I also try to make the emails very short, that’s important.

Would you say that over 50 percent of people agree to meet or talk with you?

Oh, way more than fifty percent respond. I don’t know how many I’ve contacted offhand. Maybe a dozen? I think I’ve gotten responses from almost all of them.

How much follow up do you do after meeting or talking?

I always send them a note thanking them. If it’s relevant for a specific position, I’ll also follow up later to get back in touch, but I don’t do it as a matter of course if there isn’t a reason for it.

Have you’ve found jobs using this approach?

Yes, I have found one job – my previous one – directly as a result of networking on LinkedIn. With the job I’m currently in the running for, LinkedIn also played an important role. Three years ago, I applied to a job with a company in Houston. Throughout the interview process I connected with the various people I met with who worked there over LinkedIn. I even connected with people who worked for the same company in a different location who were in similar roles. I was not offered the job, but I stayed in regular email touch with these contacts over the years.

Recently, I found out about a new opening with this company in Bogotá, where I’m currently living. I emailed one of these contacts to see if I could get a better understanding of the role and decide whether to apply. This person put me in touch with someone who was very involved in recruitment. I sent him my application following our informational meeting, bypassing the traditional HR pipeline, and I was invited to an interview.

This role would be a really good fit for me, so I’m excited about this possibility.

You’re now living in Bogotá. Do you see any differences between how people network in Colombia versus how they do it in the U.S.?

Networking as we know it in the States really doesn’t exist here and probably in other Latin American countries – it’s been interesting to see just how networking is influenced by a society’s “cultural” norms and history.

Here, networking access is really dependent on socio-economic status, so you pretty much have to forget about the possibility of making a brand new professional connection in a coffee shop or LinkedIn. What middle school and high school did you go to? Who are you friends with? That’s a little bit where you have to start. I wouldn’t sent a “cold” email to someone in Colombia; the reaction would be confused and less trusting. So here I really only use LinkedIn to do research on people.

Anything else would you tell the masses who want to understand how to use LinkedIn better?

This platform is precisely for what I’ve been doing – finding out about the companies or careers that you’re interested in – and to contact people, collect information, and get jobs. If you’re going to sign up, and particularly if you’re going to pay, then make it worth it for you. Use it to your own advantage and participate in the community. And if you’re reluctant to do that, you should probably rethink your approach.

Jorge lives in Bogotá. He does not work for LinkedIn.

Image: Stranger, Ivan Kramskoy (1883)