Whom should you send the message?
- Find people who are working in your target company.
- Prefer people who are working in the same domain. As in, if you’re a frontend developer, it is better to ask a frontend developer to refer you for the available position. They can judge you better based on your resume and your skills.
- LinkedIn allows you to send messages to a limited number of people. Prefer people who’ve been active on LinkedIn in the past one month. Here, activity means a like/comment/post/share.
What should you send in the message?
These are some DOs and DONTs to decide what to send.
- Cut the small talk and get to the point. Don’t drop a “Hi” and wait for the other person to respond back to continue the conversation.
- Provide proper context. Don’t just send a straight “Can you refer me?” without any context.
- Keep the message informative. Send your message with the proper job id and URL of the opening (from company career page, LinkedIn, etc).
- Sell yourself. If you’ve something to showcase, mention that.
Example: any tech talk that you’ve delivered, any open-source contributions that you have made, your personal website, etc. - Create a template. Following a proper template of the referral message which includes the above points will make it easier for you to apply to multiple roles.
If your message is concise and appealing, your chances of getting a reply will be pretty high. The referrer may even suggest some improvements or provide some valuable feedback. Either way, it’s a win for you.
Steps for getting referrals on LinkedIn:
1) Get Noticed: The very first step is to get yourself noticed on LinkedIn. It can happen by updating your profile regularly, showing what are you currently pursuing, what are your achievements. Updating yourself time to time on LinkedIn will give the person who you want to ask referral an idea about your personality and your character traits allowing you stand different from other people.
2) Build your strong connections: Not only getting noticed but building strong connections that can add value to your work should be considered also. With your strong connections, you can be connected with those people who are either working in a field or in a company that you may be interested in.
3) Look for the right connection:- Among your connections, you may need to look for the right person from your connections which can be either the person working in the same field you are interested in or in the same company you want to apply. The right connections can be found from 2 parts.
First connections : These connections can be your friends from your old school or college or family relatives who may be working and from whom you can ask for referral easily.
Second Connection: If there is no right connection from close people you know then it can be from people who you got connected to in order to increase your networks. They can be found on LinkedIn by searching or looking for the roles you are interested in. Because when you look for roles you also get people who are also working in that same role.
4) Make an informal interaction: After getting the right connections, it is important that you should interact with them before asking for referral. Having informal interactions will work as informal interview which can be useful in knowing about the work or the company and will show the person how interested you are in their field of work.
5) Send the Right Message: How and what kind of message needs to be sent for referral has to be kept in mind while sending. The message should be subtle and should be to the point giving out the message and not be too vague. The following points can become a way to right the message.
- Keep the message concise and appealing
- Talk to the point with proper context.
- Keep the message informative. Send your message with the proper job id and URL of the job (from the company career page, LinkedIn, etc.
- Sell yourself” · If you have something to showcase mention that, “sell yourself”
6) Follow up with them: Have a follow up from them after few days to ask about the status of your application and what is the perception of the company towards you and your work. This will give you an insight how you can improve yourself further. The key word is patience here. You shouldn’t lose hope just after sending few messages asking for referrals. It may take time at first, but you’ll be recognized soon.
the conclusion is that, asking for referral on LinkedIn allows to get connected with lots of people but among them one has to consider whom to look for to get the referral so that it can prove to be more effective while filling up the job applications and working in a company in the interested field.
