Answers to the 5 most upvoted questions
Hi, this is Nick from www.jobhackers.co
Thanks for the webinar!
Aaaaand… it’s a wrap - I’ve finished up the last session of our free webinar!
I had a blast, signups and attendance were great - and everyone who attended seems to have found the webinar useful. We even got some new signups from the event (welcome to our new friends)!
If you had to miss it, be sure to watch the recording here:
Answers to the 5 most upvoted questions
The attendees of the webinar asked quite a few questions, some of which I’m sure will be useful for everyone in our community.
Below, you’ll find some the 5 most upvoted questions, along with my written answer! As always, feel free to reach out to me directly if you want to discuss things further (Find me on LinkedIn here, or email me here)
Q: “Could you do cold outreach to people in the company that you are applying to?”
A: Yes, I strongly encourage doing cold outreach to people in the company you’re applying to! The reason for that is simple: there is no better way to get to know the company than having a conversation with someone who works there.
Example: the time I applied for a sales position at a French telemedicine startup, I managed to set up two phone-calls: one with a salesperson responsible for working with GPs, and one with a salesperson onboarding clinics and large hospitals. I had two short, 10 minute conversations that taught me a lot: what the company’s current growth strategy was (getting as many GPs as possible, whatever the cost), the long-term importance of onboarding hospitals, and the challenges each of those targets represented for the sales staff.
I got all of that information simply by having a transparent, honest conversation. I told the people I talked to about my background, that I was applying, that I was excited to apply and that I just wanted to learn more about what it was like to work there. Will this always work? No. Is it worth trying? Absolutely? Did I get the job? … unfortunately not, but I did understand perfectly well why I didn’t, and I made some great new contacts along the way!
Q: “When you cold outreach to people, are you frank about it or do you spend time to build rapport? What kind of messaging do you use?”
A: I tend to be very frank, and very upfront. People know when you’re bullshitting them, and are experts at smelling out when some one is building rapport vapidly.
The best thing you can do to build rapport, is to not waste people’s time. The trick to having them like you, is often as simple as being friendly and not taking it badly when they blow you off. Should some one tell you “sorry, not interested'“, it always pays to respond with something along the lines of “No worries, thanks for getting back to me!”.
Remember: it’s not personal. People are just busy.
Keep these things in mind when reaching out:
Never waste their time
Always be friendly
Aim to be engaging
Take rejection with a smile
There is no one good message, but as you keep the above three points in mind and start experimenting, you will probably find that the messages which work the best have these things in common: they tend to be short and to the point, friendly, informal, and not about you!
Since this appears to be a major pain-point for many of you, we’ll work on crafting better outreach messages in an upcoming workshop!
As mentioned during the webinar, I also highly recommend using Grammarly when writing your messages - the realtime feedback is super useful!
Q: “Is LinkedIn Premium worth it?”
A: I think of all the Premium versions of LinkedIn, only Sales Navigator is worth your while. It’s expensive though (around € 70 / month), so I wouldn’t recommend it to just anyone.
The main advantage of having Sales Navigator is that you will be able to visit more profiles (up to 3rd degree connections), send messages to people you’re not directly connected to, and send out more invitations to connect per day.
Sales Navigator becomes useful, and in some cases even essential, when you’re very aggressively growing your network. Especially if you’re doing so using automation. Not everyone needs Sales Navigator, so ask yourself what your goals are and whether or not your current LinkedIn behaviour is likely to have you run into the limitations of LinkedIn’s fair use policy.
Q: “How much information should I have on LinkedIn profile. Is having only companies you worked for and the positions fine, or you really should add your job responsibilities and achievements (like in your CV)?”
A: Your LinkedIn profile should complement your résumé, be a richer version of it. It’s much more about telling an engaging story, than it is about being a complete collection of facts about your job history.
Ask yourself:
What would you like someone reading your profile to think of you?
What story are you telling about yourself?
Your job-history isn’t about the jobs, it’s about you. About the value you’ve brought to the table in your different roles, and how your experience makes you a unique asset today.
Don’t be afraid to tell your story.
Q: How do you differentiate reaching out via InMail messages vs direct comments on posts?
A: I use comments on posts mainly to build long-term rapport. It helps me get on some one’s radar, or keeps a connection alive. It can also be a useful way to make it more likely for my content to show up in someone’s LinkedIn feed.
I use InMail for two things: 1) reaching out to people I’m not connected with 2) reaching out to large numbers of people.
Let me elaborate:
Reaching out to people I’m not connected to through InMail (all the way up to 3rd degree connections) can be extremely useful. It means that if I know one person in a company, I am almost certainly able to reach out to their entire staff.
InMail also allows me to automate certain cold messaging activities. I might for example set up a list of people potentially interested in a service I have to offer, and reach out to all of them by sending a short message (I don’t use this very often, and when I do I make sure that the message I send delivers undeniable value to the recipient).
So, what’s next?
I had a lot of fun doing this Webinar, so I think I will probably do more of them. If you have any request for the topic of the next one, feel free to shoot me a message!
Thanks, and talk soon!
Nick