This guest post was provided by Pathrise, an online mentorship program that works with students and professionals on every component of their job search. Pathrise has helped 500+ people land great jobs in tech through their workshops and 1-on-1 mentorship.
Most people send their resumes into online application portals and hope for the best. Unfortunately, that is not enough to get noticed when hundreds of people are applying for the same roles, which is often the case when you're looking to join large tech companies. So, how can you stand out and get your resume into the hands of someone who will read it?
At Pathrise, we work with job-seekers every day to help them move through their job search more quickly than they would on their own. One of the best ways to do this is to write compelling and concise cold emails that briefly explain who you are and why you're a good fit for the role.
Our fellows have found that sending cold emails along with their applications has tripled their response rate. In this article, we have outlined how to find the right people to email, what to say, and when to follow up so that you can get more responses to your applications, too.
How to find the right person to email
The first step is to make sure that you're sending your email to the right person at the organization.
Finding this perfect person depends on the type of company you're interested in. For example, if you're looking to work at a small startup, you can likely find a senior designer or even a leadership-level designer to email, but if you want to work at a big tech company like Facebook, you should focus on a technical recruiter responsible for hiring on the design team.
For smaller companies, you can visit their website to see if they have a team page where you can get information on the employees. Otherwise, you can use LinkedIn to search the company and find technical recruiters or design team leads.
When you're reviewing the employees, try to look for people who have a connection to you. If you can warm up this cold email with a commonality, it will be even stronger. Some examples would be: you grew up in the same city, went to the same school, or share a hobby.