How To Reach Out To Recruiters On LinkedIn And ACTUALLY Get A Response!
Part of being a recruiter means having a ton of people reaching out to you on LinkedIn for connection support - it comes with the territory and we love expanding our networks, so keep the requests coming! If you are spending part of your job hunting time reaching out to recruiters, you’re on the right track - but that's only half of the battle. The other half is ACTUALLY getting a response. If you need some help with the latter, this post should help you craft messages that stand out from the crowd. I know these changes may seem small, but they could be what is standing in the way of you and your next interview! Let’s get into it.
1. First and foremost, be specific about what you want. Many people reach out to me saying they are generally interested in positions at Wayfair, but give me no target for where they would like to be. I want to be helpful to everyone, but because of my bandwidth, most of the time I am not going to dig for more information if you don’t provide it. I personally focus on creative recruiting, and you can imagine… our company is MASSIVE with many different departments. Please, help me help you - and send along a requisition number or better yet, a link to a job posting with a resume. With this additional information, I can more quickly and easily forward your information to the right person. If I say I am going to do that, trust me, I’m going to do it! I was once in your shoes, and I know the impact of someone personally handing off your information!
2. This is so small… but when you save your resume, don’t just name it “Resume”. I want you to imagine how many file names I have to change because many folks name their resume “resume”. Put your full name in the file title. We thank you in advance!
3. Shoot. Your. Shot. I have people add me as a connection all the time but make no requests of me. And maybe you don’t have a request. But I have a sneaking suspicion that MOST of you do. Refer back to being specific and ask away! I got into this career path because I like connecting with people, and social media makes it SO easy.
4. Be patient… for around two weeks. It takes time to go through your outreaches, particularly if you reach out about something that is not in my area of recruiting. If it’s been two weeks and I haven’t responded yet, send a follow-up! If I set expectations and tell you I won’t be following up because I don’t have control over the outcome, please believe me!
There are so many more things you can do to make yourself stand out, but generally speaking, messages with these 4 simple things are the ones I tend to respond to first!
Recruiters: What are some other things that you have found that really make it easy for you to help job hunters?
Job Seekers: What have you found really helpful when reaching out to recruiters?