Step 6: Approaching the people you already know
Many of us are quick to brush past our family and friends during the job search because we’re either embarrassed to ask for help or we assume they don’t have any connections that could directly get us hired. Leaving these people out of the process — the people who should, theoretically, want to see you win the most — is a handicap we give ourselves for no good reason. Stop doing it.
Identifying the right people
Your first mission is to remember who you know in the first place, because I guarantee it’s many more people than you realise.
Think through every social group in your life. Who seems well connected, or potentially well connected, in any kind of way? Of the people you know right now, whose career path do you admire? Don’t forget:
The connection might not be obvious, so you need to really take a fine-toothed comb to this process and do some thinking. Maybe they live in the city you want to work in. Maybe they used to live in the city you want to work in. Maybe they once mentioned they have a cousin who works in the field you want to work in. Maybe they are just the kind of person who just always seems to be doing something more interesting than everybody else is. Remember that, according to the theory of weak ties, these people do not need to be your closest friends.
PAUSE
Time yourself for 20 minutes a day, every day this week. Think through your friendship groups, scroll through your social media accounts, look at your phone contacts. Come up with a list of 10 people who you think might be able to help, and write down, as specifically as possible, what they might be able to do/answer in order to help you.
You won’t come up with a definitive list all at once — even with a fitness plan like mine, networking is still about the imperfect and ever-morphing art of social connection. Your goal is to strike the balance between knowing what you want and letting serendipity dance into your life. Your friend will introduce you to their cousin. Your list will grow.
This list should be enough to get you thinking. Now that you mention it, I forgot about my friend Amir. He might be a good person to ping about this. Or, alternatively, you aren’t sold yet. I still don’t know anyone relevant. I’m not from that kind of family. I don’t know anyone who does what I want to do or works for the companies I want to work for. I am alone on this earth.
Okay, okay, fine, you’re alone. Let’s try another strategy. Once you become an adult, it can be easy to forget the communities that made you who you are. You moved away from your home town after school. You graduated from university. It’s been years since you thought about that summer club. It’s natural to discount those parts of your life as over and done, but I urge you to reconsider. Don’t spiral into regret about all the people you failed to keep in touch with over the years, we don’t have time for that today. The power of community is not to be underestimated.
Off the top of my head, here are some of the tribes I could tap into at any moment:
I hope you catch my drift. My tribes can all be traced back to specific parts of my life that define me in a strong way — even if it’s not a purely professional tie. Yours might be a religion, a football team, a language you grew up speaking. Think of something that bonds you instantly to other people, even strangers, who have that thing in common with you. Something that evokes a feeling of nostalgia that takes you back to a certain place in time.
Marily, who now works at Google, had a great story to share:
Over 10 years ago, I got into World of Warcraft (the online MMORPG game) and I joined a guild focused on coordinating group quests, raids, levelling, etc. The guild had some in-person meet-ups, so I went, I met someone there, and we got to be friends. At some point, she asked me to send her my CV, and, long story short, she got me an interview which eventually landed me my first ‘real’ job at a startup — a job I really liked! Who knew where gaming can take you.
Remember, your people genuinely want to help you — but nobody can help you if you don’t mention that you’re looking for a job in the first place.
I want you to take time to really think through your broader communities, because it is about who you know — you might just not realise you know them yet! Throughout the entire job search, you should always keep a lookout for your kindred tribes.
Outreach techniques
There are three techniques you can use for approaching your direct network: 1. The public announcement, 2. The board of directors email, and 3. The direct ask.
The public announcement
Why not kickstart your new life as a professional hustler extraordinaire with a grand public announcement to your friends and family? Pick your favourite social platform — honestly, any of them will do — and go take your shot.
If the concept of doing this terrifies you, I want you to repeat after me: I am proud of myself for looking for a job. There is no shame in telling people what I want out of my career. I am so awesome and brave for putting myself out there. I am making it easy for people to help me and for opportunity to find me.
The main argument I’ll give you for using this tactic that you really cannot predict who is going to know someone who can help you. That childhood friend you haven’t spoken to in years might be the one to pull through here, and you wouldn’t have remembered (or even known) to text them.
To manage your expectations about public announcements, remember that you don’t always see every post from every single one of your friends online. This is not a one-time silver bullet, it’s just a way to expand your reach. You still need to follow up specifically with the people you already know will be able to help you.
Public announcement #ENTRYLEVELBOSS template
Friends! Big life news: I am moving to Stockholm at the end of this month and the job search has officially begun. I’m actively looking for full-time business development manager roles, and the dream is to work for a cleantech startup (something like Company X or Company Y if you know the industry!) that specialises in sustainable city planning.
If you have friends or contacts in Stockholm, I ask that you please introduce me! I am actively on the hunt for this next professional adventure … and also for killer cinnamon buns …
My LinkedIn: [insert URL]
My email: [insert email]
DM me if you might be able to help, and I’m happy to send over an email with more details.
The board of directors email
If making a big announcement feels too extroverted (or maybe you have a full-time job you haven’t left yet and need to be discreet), you could consider the board of directors email approach.
What’s a board of directors? According to investopedia.com, a board of directors is ‘a group of individuals elected to represent shareholders. A board’s mandate is to establish policies for corporate management and oversight, making decisions on major company issues. Every public company must have a board of directors.’
Repurposed for our needs, it’s a select group of advisors from a few different chapters of your own life. They aren’t your best friends, they’re your best mentors. You likely admire their professional trajectory, even if it’s not the exact path you want to pursue for yourself. This dozen-ish people could be comprised of former professional contacts (maybe a favourite ex-boss), mentors (maybe a babysitter or family friend or professor), friends (maybe a university housemate who always gave great advice), or family members (maybe the smartest of your cousins).
Ideally, it’s a mix of people who know you in a professional capacity and people who are always rooting for you, all of whom might be well positioned to help you. The further into your career you get, the more and more this group will be comprised of your favourite ex-colleagues or professional contacts.
Put everybody on BCC so that you don’t rope all these people that don’t know each other into a Reply All disaster.
The most important thing to remember when writing this email — and almost any other email you send throughout this process — is that it could possibly be forwarded to someone who could hire you. Always write for that audience.
Board of directors email #ENTRYLEVELBOSS template
Subject line: Big life news from me
To my wisest mentors,
You’re receiving this email because I consider you to be on my personal board of directors. And because I value your life/career advice, I want to tell you that I am (quietly and actively) on the hunt for a new job … in Cambridge!
Yep, I’m moving at the end of this month so that Julian and I can finally live in the same place again. And while I’m going to miss Devon cream teas more than anything, I am excited about this new chapter.
Job-wise, I am actively looking for a full-time role:
The dream is to work for a large hospital. The work I’ve been doing as a receptionist at my local GP surgery this year is definitely applicable, and I really want to continue working in healthcare.
If you have friends or professional contacts in Cambridge, I want to meet them. Will you please introduce me or pass on my name? I’m working hard to schedule as many meetings and phone interviews as I can ahead of landing, so that I can hit the ground running.
My LinkedIn: [insert URL]
CV: Attached!
Happy to give you more specifics. Please let me know how I can make it easy for you. Regardless, wish me luck and come visit us in Cambridge. And thank you for always having my back.
The direct ask
Every so often, you’re going to know exactly how somebody could help you.
I promise you, whether it’s your oldest friend or a distant childhood acquaintance, this person just wants you to ask them what they already know you want to ask them. I know it’s hard to be straightforward about this stuff. I know it can feel like you’re bothering this person. But trust me: it’s much more awkward to be on the receiving end of communication from somebody in your personal life who wants something from you professionally but appears to be too nervous to come out and ask for it directly.
Also, if somebody offers to help before you even ask them, please don’t waste their time (or your own) by being shy and telling them you don’t need help. You do need help. Take them up on their offer as soon as you’re ready, whether it’s an introduction or a reference. Help them to help you. Always make it as easy as possible, even when it’s a friend.
Direct ask #ENTRYLEVELBOSS template
Subject line: Looking for a little help!
Hey [First Name],
How are things? I stalked the honeymoon photos last month and Greece looks delightful.
Getting in touch with some big life news: I’m moving to Melbourne! My boyfriend lives there and we’re stupidly excited to be in the same place again.
I’m in full-on job search mode in the lead-up to the move, and I noticed that you used to work for Company X in the Sydney office. They’re one of the employers I’d really like to talk to in Melbourne (I have my heart set on fundraising for a performing arts or music foundation).
Do you know happen to anybody in that office? Or anybody in Sydney who still works at the company? I haven’t found a perfect position posted on the Careers page … but from my stalking/research, I think it makes the most sense for me to chat with someone on the fundraising and development team.
If you have any related suggestions or thoughts, I’m all ears. Thanks so much in advance if you can help!
Thanks,
X
PS: Attaching a CV and my LinkedIn in case the stars align and you can pass it along. THANK YOU AGAIN!
Warning: don’t be this person
The biggest pitfall you’ll succumb to with this kind of networking is forgetting to do your professional research about the people you know in a personal context. You may know your friends or friends of friends in drinks mode, but now you’re about to ask for a professional favour. You need to give the people you know the same respect that you’d give to a stranger. This might sound obvious, so let me please put the fear of God into you for a minute.
As we know, I’m a San Diego native who has muscled her way into both the United Kingdom and Germany several times: study visas, work visas, fancier work visas, bureaucracy, a lot of paperwork. When it comes to immigration law in western Europe, I really know the ropes. I am a vast well of very specific and very helpful knowledge. Because of this, I get hit up all the time by friends who have friends who want to move from America to Europe (or the other way around).
I want to tell you about a time this went really wrong, a few years back, when a mutual friend introduced over me over Facebook Messenger to a friend of hers. The friend of a friend was an American woman, my age, who was thinking about moving to Berlin because her UK study visa was about to run out. I told her I was happy to get on the phone for 20 minutes and answer questions.
‘Thanks in advance!’ she replied. ‘I will hit you up soon!’
Okay, ball in her court. All good.
About a week later, I was doing a routine check through my Facebook message requests, and I spotted a new message from this friend-of-a-friend woman. This was her first mistake. She didn’t add me on Facebook, so I basically found her message by luck. If she had responded on that same conversation thread (the one our mutual friend started), I would have seen her message immediately.
Slightly edited, here’s what that message said:
hey alexa how’s it goingggg?? basically i’m intrigued at your move to germany and exit from the uk … firstly, i don’t really think there is any way i can stay here, but did you almost find one? i heard you might have. also, when you moved to germany, did you instantly start your own work as in working for yourself? also do you speak german? i’m just curious as to how that transition worked for you, let me know when you get a spare moment. thanks! Xo
No. No, no, no, no, no.
I remember reading this message and banging my head against the wall. Oh, honey. You fool! You had the chance to get very solid advice on a subject that very few people know about, for free, from the perfect person, from the best weak tie you were likely to find, and you went and shot yourself in the foot.
Later that week, I made a big fat list of all the reasons she screwed up. I put them in the #ENTRYLEVELBOSS newsletter, which I’m sure this woman never read, even though she would have known about said newsletter had she bothered to look me up for even five seconds. Brace yourself, reader, because this turns sassy pretty quickly. But perhaps I’ve been a bit too encouraging in my tone so far, and I’m guessing that someone out there needs to hear this.
So, without further ado, I’ll repeat it for you here …
Girl, you do not know me.
I appreciate that I am approximately your same age and that we share a good friend in common. This does not give you an excuse to:
Use this much casual punctuation.
Use a boatload of incorrect, informal grammar.
Not introduce yourself or give me context in any way, shape, or form.
Not even capitalise my name???
I don’t know what you know about me, but please do your research. I am a professional business owner who already offered to get on the phone with you for 20 minutes to try to help.
Here are the answers to the questions you actually asked me: Good, Yes, Yes, Poorly.
‘i’m just curious as to how that transition worked for you’ is not a question. It is a poorly phrased statement about your own curiosity. No, I am not going to sit down and write you a five-paragraph essay on my entire life history, on how I moved to Berlin sight unseen at age 25, on how I started my business from scratch, on how I got my first clients. If you googled me, which you did not, you would see that I’ve written more than one article on these topics. You would know that I didn’t actually move from the UK to Germany, as you seem to be assuming, but that I spent an intense year in San Francisco in-between. You would see that I write a newsletter read by thousands of people. And maybe, just maybe, you would have come at me in a different way.
I am not going to let you know ‘when I get a spare moment’.
I already told you, let’s talk on the phone.
I will take 20 minutes out of my day and give them to you. I will tell you my life story, and explain how I did it all, and cheer you on, and tell you I’m happy to introduce you to people when you get to town. I will do that because our mutual friend is flipping fantastic, and she cares about you, and I care about her. You should have come back to me the first time and said, ‘Awesome. Thank you. Are you free sometime on Tuesday between 10am and 4pm UK time? Let me know what number to call you at, and I’ll take care of the rest.’
Insert yourself into my calendar. I already invited you to do so. But, Lord, do not ask me to find a spare moment and then come back to check with you if my sacred extra moment works for your schedule. Nah, baby, we ain’t doing it like that.
… but I didn’t say any of that to her. Instead, I’m saying it to you, dear reader, so that you never get yourself into this situation ever. Ever. E-v-e-r, do you hear me?
I did reply to her message, for the record. I said:
Hey, good to hear from you. Easiest to chat on the phone so I can answer all your questions straight away. I’m around tonight or tomorrow. Just ping me and we can chat.
Seen, but never got a response.
As it has been said a billion times before, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Keep your tone friendly, but demonstrate your professionalism early and often.
Step 6 task list