How To Write Cold Outreach Emails
November 8, 2011
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Your introductory paragraph should be a small rehash of the subject line, but with more words. This is your opportunity to try to establish a relationship with the person, and get them to want to see what your “ask” is. I generally start with my name and why I believe it’s ok for me to reach out:
My name is Philip Cortes and I’m reaching out as I’m a fellow alumni of Wesleyan University (Class of ‘06).
In that first sentence I try to help the person identify where I’m coming to them from, and why they should read more. My second sentence usually centers around how I obtained that person’s contact information, and a hint as to why I’m reaching out. : “I found your profile and contact information in Wesleyan’s alumni database, and considering your experience in the startup sector, decided to reach out.”
The third sentence can be a bit of a summary, and a lead into what it is that you’re “selling/pitching”. In this case, I would say,
Below is a little about my startup and where we’re headed.
philip
The Power of Weak Ties
November 3, 2011
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In the search for a job and career that fits our interests and accommodates our needs, we often turn to the connections we have developed meeting people throughout our lives. Perhaps you contact a friend who can somehow utilize his contacts to arrange an interview for a lucrative job or maybe you use your alma mater’s alumni database to get in touch with an alumnus in your industry. Although these options prove to be quite useful at times, we usually look over one aspect of our social network that can be utilized for job leads that we would have otherwise not known about.
The strength of weak ties
Mark Granovetter, currently a sociologist at Stanford University, published a seminal research paper in 1973, titled ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’. Interviewing people who had switched jobs to find out how these people discovered new job opportunities, Granovetter surprisingly found that his interview subjects found their jobs through contacts that were classified more as distant acquaintances rather than as close friends. A surprising finding considering that you would think that your close friends would have more of a connection to you and would thus be more compelled to find you job opportunities that best suit you. The reasoning behind this intriguing phenomenon is rooted in the way in which social networks are set up.
Figure 1: A social network representing the effect of ‘friends of friends’ on job leads
philip
Resume Optimization, An Introduction
November 2, 2011
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Most of us know that building an effective resume is the first step towards landing that summer internship or finding permanent employment post-graduation. Whether you are applying to opportunities in finance, public policy, technology or design, it is important to create a resume that is tailored to the needs of that particular job. This means showing off the applicable skills – relevant coursework, previous employment, awards – that give the potential employer an idea of how you might contribute to their company.
What Employers Look For:
Human resources will review an individual resume at each step of the hiring process. Therefore don’t think of a resume as just an admission ticket into the interview. Employers look at a resume when developing interview questions and will expect applicants to elaborate on past experiences, so practice discussing the information listed so that you come off as comfortable and confident when making your first impression.
Style & Organization:
A crisp, clean and well-balanced resume exudes professionalism and will flatter whatever qualifications you choose to present. Some industries like finance or consulting will expect a strong, traditionally formatted resume; others such as graphic design or advertising may appreciate a more creative and unorthodox style. Regardless of style, all applicants should include their most recent and relevant experience first. Also be sure to play up any transferable skills that you may have developed in the workplace or elsewhere. Leadership, languages, technical expertise and other personal attributes may apply directly to your target company’s open position.
philip
At some point of our lives, we’ve all had to send an email to someone we didn’t know. Whether we were introduced to them through a friend, or found their contact information, the process is always slightly awkward. If its’ any reassurance to you, everyone feels the same way! It’s a dance we all have to engage with at some point of our lives though, and this “Email Etiquette” series is designed to help make that process a bit easier.
The Subject Line is a vitally important aspect of your email. For someone you don’t know to want to engage with that email instead of automatically sending it to the trash, you’re going to want to make it as catchy and direct as possible.
Length
Although email clients today can display longer subject lines, that’s not advisable. A long subject line suggests that a long email is buried below. (ie..a good incentive NOT to open it!). Try to keep your subject lines between 3 to 5 words.
Wording
What we’ve found helpful when reaching out is to break the subject line into two parts. The first part should indicate who you are, and however it is that you’re linked to the individual. If you both attended the same school, for example, that would be a good place to signal that. If you’re both members of the same professional organization, I would put that.
The second part should detail what it is that you’re looking for or what your need is. If you’re a job seeker, generally seeking out advice from people is a good way to get your foot int he door. People will understand that you might be seeking for a job, but psychologically they are more likely to be open to the idea of giving you advice (everyone likes to talk), versus giving you a job when they’ve never met you.
If you’re trying to sell a product a service, (or a startup looking for capital), it is ok at this point to simply state what your business is without necessarily signaling that you’re looking to sell something. Remember, you’re trying to give as much positive information as possible, so that the individual wants to open your email – it’s hard to fit in a full pitch of your service in the subject line. That having been said, don’t lie here – if you’re a salesperson, don’t ask for “advice”, then spring a service you’re selling on the call….honesty is key here.
Below are some examples to help get you started:
Wharton Student, Seeking Advice
Wharton Startup – Seeking Mentors
Rotary Club Member Seeking Expertise
Sarah Jones Referral: Salesforcing.com
philip
Dear Startup-ers, this one’s for you.
Did you know that 46-50% of all jobs are found through networking? That’s ALL jobs, not just silicon valley developer/designer/biz dev jobs. Not surprisingly, the higher level the job is in terms of income and title, the more likely it is to be found through networking. Don’t believe me? Check out the following sources Link 1 / Link 2 (This statistic has held constant from 2000-Today)
So think of it this way – if that’s how important networking is across the entire United States for all jobs, imagine what that statistic is for startup jobs. Think about it – how did you find your co-founder? How did you hire your first developer or business guy? I’m willing to bet that for the VAST majority of you it certainly wasn’t through a random job posting….
So here’s my point, if you are looking for a Co-Founder, developer, designer, et al. GET OFF YOUR ASS and
1) Start meeting new people
2) Reconnect with old friends.
Why Reconnecting With Old Friends is Important:
It’s a numbers game, really. Think about all of the people you’ve met over your lifetime….Of those, let’s say you’re the average Facebook & LinkedIn user and have 130 friends + 60 connections, so 190 people total. (Source 1 / Source 2)
(And let’s be serious, you probably have WAY more friends or connections than that, but for the sake of logical argument, let’s go with averages).
If each of those people is also an average person, then he/she will also have 190 connections each, which puts your second degree network at 36,100 people. Simply stated, that means that if you need something, chances are SOMEONE in your network can help you get there, or get you closer to your goal. Designers? Check. Developers? Check. The only thing keeping you from your objective is a) knowing who can help you and b) reaching out to that person.
Side Note: That’s what we do for you at Meeteor, but worst case scenario you could do the work yourself on other less interesting services like this one 
.
So start talking to your friends, start asking them what they’ve been up to, start establishing rapport with them. Make a list, try to reconnect with everyone every year. I just ran into a friend of mine, Jeff, from Junior year of high school calculus class – I hadn’t spoken to Jeff since graduation. It turns out that post college he helped found two mobile web startups in the valley, and is uber connected….you better believe I regretted not emailing Jeff every year just to ask him how he was doing…
Why Meeting New People is Important:
So we covered why old friends are important, but now that you have a specific goal, meeting new people can have an even more powerful impact. Let’s say you need to hire a designer – you’re best off going to MeetUps for designers and winning as many people as possible over with kindness. Just because the individual you’re talking to isn’t a designer, doesn’t mean they don’t know a designer, or can’t point you in the right direction. Think of it this way…every one person you meet is a gateway to (on average!) 190 other people. If that individual is at a MeetUp for deisgners, chances are he/she knows someone who can help you.
That’s powerful if you think about it.
philip
Our Value Proposition, Simply Stated
November 22, 2010
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As we talk to more people about our service and what it does, some people ask us both why they would use Meeteor, and how Meeteor would help them, specifically. To that end, we decided to draft up our thesis on networking, and how Meeteor can help you.
Meeteor.com connects people who don’t know each other, but should. The premise of our platform is that effective networking has two dimensions: the breadth of your network and the rapport you’ve established with each person in it.
Breadth: Breadth matters because the problems you face today aren’t the same problems you could be facing in two months or two years. The more people you have in your network, and the greater the variability in their expertise, the more likely you will be able to leverage that network to help you in the future, no matter what the problem is.
Rapport : We all know people – but how many of those individuals are likely to go out of their way to help us in the future? For this reason we believe rapport is paramount to an efficient network. When you have a problem, you reach out to people you know to help you solve problems not just because they have relevant expertise, but because they may know someone who can help you. The better your rapport is with that person, the more likely they are to open up their rolodex to help you in the future.
Example Problem: Let’s say your boss wants you to take on social media marketing efforts for your division. You want to get more information on best practices before you tackle this new project, and decide to seek out some advice. You may not know a social media expert yourself, but if you have a good relationship with three other people in media or marketing, chances are they both know someone and can introduce you to help you tackle your problem. The more people you have to call on, and the better your rapport is with each of them, the more likely you are to get help to solve your problem.
Meeteor exists to help you extend the breadth of your network, ensuring that you have a solid foundation of a network for when you need it. Furthermore, we introduce you to people with whom you have a lot in common, to help you build better rapport with that individual, and to help you establish a relationship of equals. We leverage data from existing social networks to introduce people who have a certain set of criteria in common.
Example Solution : When you join Meeteor, we may introduce you to Sarah. When you’re introduced to each other, we’ll provide you with each other’s resumes, as well as a venn diagram of your overlapping social data. We will be able to show you the friends and connections you have in common, if you’re from the same home town, the LinkedIn groups you’re both members of, the people you follow in common on Twitter, and whether you have overlapping stated interests. This way when you and Sarah meet, you aren’t strangers – you both know John, went to Wharton, and are members of the “Entrepreneurship Leaders” group on LinkedIn. Thanks to this data, you have grounds to very quickly and comfortably begin establishing a relationship with one another. Sarah may be the social media expert you’re looking for, but if she isn’t, she may introduce you to someone who is, because you’ve established a credible relationship.
philip
Behavioral Questions – The Master List
November 13, 2010
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Since the majority of networking being done at this point of the year is related to job-searching, we thought we’d give you a hand. Below is a comprehensive list of behavioral questions we’ve seen over the years. Any MBA should be ready to answer each of these questions on a whim, and be able to draw from more than one example for each. If you’re looking for fellow consultants to do practice interviews with, don’t forget to enter “consulting” as an interest in Meeteor – we’ll go ahead and schedule times for you to meet up and do practice cases!
Goodluck all!
- What do you want to do as a career (both immediately after graduation and long-term)?
- How would you rate your quantitative skills?
- How would you rate your verbal skills?
- Why should we accept you as opposed to the other qualified candidates?
- Why should we take you as a sophomore when there are so many other juniors who are applying for an internship?
- Are you applying for any other internships? (Say that you are or that you will be. Don’t look like you’re only applying to X Firm. If they ask whether or not you think you’ll get those other internships, say yes. However, make sure they understand that X Firm is your first choice.)
- Do you have any questions for us?
- Is there anything you wished we had asked you?
- Is there anything else you’d like to tell us or anything you’d want us to know?
- Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see things your way.
- Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills.
- Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem.
- Give me an example of a time when you set a goal and were able to meet or achieve it.
- Tell me about a time when you had to use your presentation skills to influence someone’s opinion.
- Give me a specific example of a time when you had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree.
- Please discuss an important written document you were required to complete.
- Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done.
- Tell me about a time when you had too many things to do and you were required to prioritize your tasks.
- Give me an example of a time when you had to make a split second decision.
- What is your typical way of dealing with conflict? Give me an example.
- Tell me about a time you were able to successfully deal with another person even when that individual may not have personally liked you (or vice versa).
- Tell me about a difficult decision you’ve made in the last year.
- Give me an example of a time when something you tried to accomplish and failed.
- Give me an example of when you showed initiative and took the lead.
philip
Don’t stress about on campus recruiting!
October 11, 2010
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We were digging through the Wharton MBA career management site statistics and stumbled on this pie chart, which we thought we’d share. What’s interesting here is that 57% of Full-Time Offers for the class of 2009 came from On Campus Recruiting. The rest of them came from a plethora of different sources, the most interesting being Personal Networking Connections (15%), and Wharton Alumni Contact (3.4%).
The importance of maintaining your existing relationships and leveraging them to make new ones is essential to a succesful independent job search. For those of us that aren’t interested in breaking into the traditional banking or consulting type jobs, the pipeline to jobs isn’t as well established – the work is laborious and time consuming. The good news is that although it feels like everyone else is getting a job through OCR, the reality is that there’s still more than 40% of the student body that gets a job through their own means (namely networking).
The key to having a successful “non-traditional” (Non-OCR) job search is to start early. Alumni all say that they start getting waves of emails as soon as OCR picks up – it’s only natural that the OCR process incites the fear of god in many of us to start our job search.
IF you want to differentiate yourself, however, you should start early, and start with your classmates. Chances are they not only can give you real insight on what the work is like in X or Y industry, but they’d be more than happy to introduce you to relevant people in the industry as well.
Stay tuned – we’ll keep digging through the Wharton archives and the most relevant information we find here!
philip
Networking This Week
October 4, 2010
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Couple quick updates…..
First, Meeteor went down this weekend….apologies to everyone. Our martians are working closely with our server host to resolve the issue – we hopefully will be back online rocking and rolling by tomorrow.
Also, we were out looking for good events for those of us interested in Networking, and found a few….The first is Networking 201 Tuesday October 5th , from 12:00-1:20PM (JMHH G60), then 4:30-6:00PM (JMHH F95). We went last year and although a lot of it is stuff you’ve probably already heard, there were definitely a few really valuable nuggets. The second is the Tech Club Networking Mixer, also on Tuesday October 5th. It’ll be hosted at the City Tap House – 3925 Walnut. Don’t have to be interested in tech – it’s a mixer between first and second years, and could be a good way to branch out and expand your network!
philip
