Why would you want to send a cold email? Because knowing someone within a company is the best way to get your foot in the door for open roles. While you may not be the final choice for an open role once the hiring process is over, a good referral from a current employee can make a difference in your consideration as a job candidate.

There’s the good kind of cold introduction email in which a person keeps it brief, yet introduces themselves with the right tone and level of detail, explaining who they are and why they’re making contact. Then there’s the kind that asks a perfect stranger to provide a reference without so much as a work experience synopsis or an explanation of how the heck they got your email address.

This post provides some tips that have worked for our team. They may not work for everyone, and certainly won’t work every time, but a cold email is worth a try if you have no other way to meet someone at a company at which you hope to one day be employed.

Step #1: Do your research

I repeat this over and over because it’s quite often that I see the opposite: please, please do some research. Research the company where you want to work thoroughly so that you know what they do and how they’re structured. Next, find the job posting category that you’re most qualified for and find one or two roles that you feel are a great fit. Resist the temptation to hit the apply button just yet. If you already know someone at the company that you want to work for, you’re ready for Step #4. If not, move on to Step #2.

Step #2: Find people on LinkedIn

You need a contact, and that’s exactly what LinkedIn can provide. Since you already researched the company and narrowed down the departments where you want to work per Step #1, you can start searching LinkedIn for people who currently work in exactly those niches. Before you do that, however, try visiting the company’s page on LinkedIn and review their job postings. Often, the person who posted the job is listed with the job posting. If you find that to be the case, eureka! You can move on to Step #3 (but take note of the success tip below first).

If you didn’t find a human resources professional or other job poster, it’s time to move on and search for people who work in the department that you’re aiming for. Filter for people and current company, and you just might be able to guess who the possible supervisor for the role you’re interested in may be as well as deduce members of the team. Gather their names, read their profiles, take some notes on their experience and education, and compile their email addresses (if available). If you can’t find email addresses, more on that in Step #3.

Success tip: Take note of how long these people have been at the company and whether they’re currently “LinkedIn Premium” members. Sometimes, LinkedIn Premium status means that those people may be looking for employment elsewhere. Short terms of employment could mean that turnover is high.

Step #3: Find contact details

If you didn’t see a published email address on the applicable LinkedIn profiles, you have two choices: 1) try to find their company email address or 2) send them a message through LinkedIn.

To find an email address, visit the company’s website and look for the names of the people you found through your LinkedIn research. If you don’t find any of them, look for C-suite leaders or public relations contacts on the site. Their email address will show you the email style likely followed for everyone at the company. It could be firstname.lastname or firstletteroffirstnamelastname, or any of the other many variations of email companies follow. Next is a guessing game based on the names stated on the LinkedIn profiles you researched. Just give it your best guess based on what you know about the other email addresses at the company, and add an email address for each contact you want to email to your notes.

If you find that guessing at an email address is impossible, another option is to use the LinkedIn messaging system to reach out for your cold introduction. Your access to this feature is based on your LinkedIn membership type as well as the personal settings of the person you’re trying to reach. Not every person will be reachable through LinkedIn, and this messaging system has character limits.

Regardless of how you make contact, following Step #4 will help you connect with these strangers with as much professionalism as possible.

Step #4: Make contact

You’ve done the work, and now it’s time to craft your emails. Because you’re reaching out to someone you don’t know (or may not know well) and you want something from them, it’s important that you show humility and appreciation of their time. It’s also important that you’re professional and not creepy. Get into a positive mindset before you start writing, and use the following sections as a guide when you craft each of your emails.

1. Greeting – It’s nice to say hello and address the person directly. Don’t shorten their name in any way: use the first name that they refer to themselves with on LinkedIn.
2. Introduce yourself – State your name, and thank them for reading your message. Keep it brief.
3. Explain yourself – Concisely, state why you reached out specifically to them, including how you found them (remember, you don’t want to look like a cyber stalker). Include the names of the roles you’re interested in. This is the place to ask for what you want: is it information about the department or role? Think about this and be clear about what you’re asking.
4. Short experience blurb – Give a mini introduction (maximum of 2-3 sentences) of your relevant work experience and any important facts. Use the most relevant experience that matches what the job posting says they’re looking for, but don’t repeat what’s on your resume.
5. Finish it up – Show your appreciation for their time, and add a short phrase about how you’re looking forward to hearing from them (as they answer your question from the “Explain yourself” section) and that you’re attaching your resume for reference.
6. Attach your resume – Save your resume to PDF format before attaching, then attach the PDF version. The reason that you should attach a PDF and not a Word or other type of document is that formatting is finicky due to different software versions and other settings. A PDF is similar to an image, and will retain your formatting. Use a clear filename such as lastname_resume and avoid using periods or other characters within the filename that could cause email and readability glitches.
7. Revise and review it – You’re reaching out to a person from whom you’d like help, and with that in mind, it’s important that your writing reflect your best professional self and the care that you would take as this person’s coworker. Check your grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and tone. This is not the time to write in text-speak or use emojis. You don’t want to be too formal, but you also want to err on the side of professionalism.
8. Send your email – Proofread and review one more time, shorten where possible, check your tone, and then go ahead: click the send button.

It takes practice to craft interesting, personalized emails for each person you contact. Because you’re likely to contact more than one person at the same company, don’t simply copy and paste the same words for emails. Find ways to personalize each email for each recipient.

If you don’t hear anything, should you follow up? This one is tricky. If two weeks have passed, it may be useful to reach out as a “reply” to your original message if you have something new to offer such as a link to a great article about the company’s industry or some other valuable information that will benefit your recipient. One follow-up, however, is probably the limit. If you don’t get a response after that, close that book and move on.

Success tip: Even if you get crickets after you send your cold introduction emails, you may wind up working side-by-side with these people one day. Keep your professionalism intact and resist the urge to continuously follow-up, stalk them on social media, or badmouth them or the company in any way. There could be many reasons that a person doesn’t reply including company reorganizations, lack of time, or that you reached out to the wrong person. Remember that in essence, much of this is guesswork and it’s possible that you tried to connect with someone who doesn’t have anything to do with the roles you want. It’s also possible that you left a good impression, but that person didn’t think they could offer much help and didn’t reply.

Step #5: Apply for open roles

Now that you contacted one or more people and have a feel for what you want, go ahead and hit the apply button on job postings you’re interested in. You can choose to wait a few days for a response to your emails in case you get helpful background information for your cover letter or application, or do it as soon as you finish sending them. Upload your PDF resume to application portals to avoid formatting issues.

By using the steps above as a base for reaching out to strangers, you’ll find what works for you. Modify steps as needed, and good luck making new connections.

Learn more

If you’d like to jump-start your next career move, try our short-content book, “Work It: The One-Stop, One-Hour Essential Resource to Jump-Start Your Job Search.”

Thanks for reading! Advice provided on this site is for information purposes only and is not intended to replace or substitute for professional financial, medical, or legal advice.