Comments on: Think Like a Recruiter while on LinkedIn

By: Gary Donnelly

Gary Donnelly — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:25:33 +0000

You all have hit the “new” nail on the head. I’ve been telling people that the rules have changed drastically within the last 9 months that I’ve been out of work. Forget about contacting HR departments directly. You’ll most likely get a “dead” voicemail and you won’t get a response. I have also used these ways of “cheating” the system to reach out to contacts with mixed results. But I have gotten results. With no other viable alternative this is the way to go…until companies figure out what we as job seekers are doing and come up with a way to ignore us once again. As I continue to tell friends job search rules are changing fast and we have to be resourceful and creative in our approach.

By: Jason Alba

Jason Alba — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:02:51 +0000

@Sara – good point… however allowing anyone to communicate with other users would take away possible revenue opps for LI

@Don, Very nice – I just blogged about this today – quoting you

@Bill – I’ll post a response to your question on Wed

By: I’m On LinkedIn – Now What??? » Blog Archive » Think Like A Recruiter While on LinkedIn, Part II

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:59:58 +0000

[...] week I wrote Think Like a Recruiter While on LinkedIn and got a terrific suggestion from Don (second [...]

By: Bill Kerschbaum

Bill Kerschbaum — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:59:20 +0000

Thanks, Jason. So what are the advantages to contacting someone outside of LinkedIn, in your opinion?
-Bill.

By: Don

Don — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:15:18 +0000

Jason – I could not agree with you more. In this job or selling market, you need to be both creative and persistent.

I took a similar approach in researching a company I was interested in. In addition to reaching out to employees (of the 3 I contacted, 2 replied within 48 hours), I reached out to a few of their partner organizations (this company sold product through resellers only. the position I was looking at was a reseller manager. who better to tell me the good, the bad and the ugly than the people who I would be managing). I sent out 5 emails and 2 replied.

One other comment….if you there are a few different possible email address structures for a company (i.e. Microsoft has so many employees, they have had to expand/change their email structure – firstname.lastname or firstnamelastinital or lastname.firstname…) ALWAYS send 1 email to each email address. This way you will know which email address is the correct one through a process of elimination…for the bad ones you will get a “UNDELIVERABLE” notification. Chances are it you do not get a notification, you have the right email address.

By: Sara

Sara — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:51:10 +0000

I wish LinkedIn would make it easier to contact people, but it is what it is I guess. Thank you for your wonderful tips. To make it easier for people to contact me, I provide a link to my VisualCV resume in my profile, and my e-mail address is right at the top of the resume. I’ve made most of my LinkedIn profile public, so everyone can access the link.