Contacting through LinkedIn

[Otispunkmeyer]

Job hunting at the moment and there is a company I would like to send a speculative CV/Letter to. They don't have any roles advertised at the moment (though they only seem to advertise through their parent company so who knows).

I have, however, found exactly the person I would need to speak to on LinkedIn but am wary of hitting connect for someone who I don't know (though weirdly am 2nd connection to). I could try InMail which at least looks more formal but that necessitates signing up. It is free for a month though. Alternatively I could go for the traditional printed letter and CV and mail it to the company for his attention (and hope it gets there and then gets opened and read!).

What is the best way ? I feel like hitting connect and explaining myself in the little message box is a bit clunky. He may not even be someone who checks LinkedIn all that often either.

EDIT: Also I have some ideas for products --- should I explain them in a covering letter? (would therefore make the letter multiple pages which might be a no no).

Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Wednesday 16th November 22:22

[Steve Campbell]

I'm no expert but going through the same dilemma so also interested in replies.

If the person is 2nd connection, I've used a version of : "Hi, I see you are connected with XYZ who I also know from ABC. I hope you don't mind the direct connection but I am currently looking for opportunities in BLAH BLAH and would appreciate a chat. You can contact me direct on e.mail address".

[petrolbloke]

Personally I wouldn't 'connect' with someone on LinkedIn that I hadn't met in person.

You could phone up and either try to speak to the person directly or get an e-mail address for them, failing that send to the generic sales/info/careers/whatever e-mail address that most companies have or send an old fashioned letter. It may be a good idea in the letter to explain how you found the person's name and what interests you about the company etc.

I wouldn't go into specific product ideas in a covering letter, but nothing wrong with writing a few words about your creativity, ideas and innovation perhaps with previous examples.

[technodup]

Otispunkmeyer said:

Alternatively I could go for the traditional printed letter and CV and mail it to the company for his attention (and hope it gets there and then gets opened and read!).

What is the best way ?

I'd avoid LI personally. These days everything is too easy, just ping a load of template messages and hope for the best (or that's how it seems to the recipient).

But because everyone's doing that, it means other communication forms are more unusual and more memorable. If you have ideas for products it suggests a creative role of some sort, so get creative.

How to get your letter read? Don't make it look like a letter for a start. Put it in a box rather than an envelope. Or record a video to DVD and send that. Or send a cheap calculator in a box and tell them your product will add x% to their profit and have them work it out.

Anything out of the ordinary is getting read, and read first. Good luck.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Yeah, it does seem a little lazy now that I think of it.

Besides they are not too far away so I could actually hand deliver a package to the building with FAO: Joe Bloggs on it. Note taken about putting ideas in there, probably best to scale that back, but just allude to having some. I'm not sure they'll be particularly great ideas or even ideas that would be worth following but it shows that I think about it and think about what type of products would improve my sport (they're a sports goods company and are big names in my sport which I have done since I was about 5 and there seems to be a big opportunity to get ahead of all the others when it comes to producing affordable wearable tech, monitoring tech, video tech)

[andy-xr]

Guess the email address. Worst case you'll get a bounce. The person will get a notification on email that someone's sent them a message on LinkedIn, so they wont even have to log in, the problem is you cant include contact details on your messages as they'll get filtered out.

LinkedIn to me is a resource for finding contact names to then approach directly.

I've had good success with making a direct contact by phone/email from finding the person who's most relevent to the enquiry I'm making.

I've tried InMail - I ended up wtih a load of credits back from LinkedIn becuase of no reply (because the recipient gets an email notification) so I cancelled the PRemium upgrade.

[omniflow]

The way networking was explained to me is that you ask the person to whom you are directly connected on LinkedIn to introduce you to the person that you are interested in contacting.

If you don't know your connection well enough to ask them, then you should review your strategy for creating / building your network.

[meehaja]

I used Linked in to contact people doing the role I was applying for (NHS role, so lots of people nationally doing same job (ish) for advice on role and responsibilities as job spec was quite vague. Most were really helpful and open to being contacted.