Intro.
This is hands-down one the most useful article that I’ve created by far. As a true Gen Z, I spend a significant amount of my free time on TikTok and know just how much my fellow Gen Ziers and Millenials are struggling with job search. This article is made for them and anyone who is actively or passively looking for a new job.
I have taught this strategy to a number of people and it is quite literally guaranteed to work for you too. I don’t like saying the word “guaranteed” because very few things are a sure-deal but this is, in fact, a sure deal. I can’t guarantee that you’ll get a job but I can guarantee that you’ll get interviews with companies you’re interested in.
For the sake of this article, I’ll assume that you already know what type of positions you want to go after and what job-boards you’ll be using to find those positions. If you don’t - just ask ChatGPT to analyze your resume and make suggestions based on your experience.
I’m personally pursuing growth-focused roles mostly at startups and more established companies like Brex, Carta, Mercury etc. So I use the following job-boards: YC job board, Wellfound (AngelList) and Glassdoor. I’m writing this article as I myself am executing the strategy described in the article so you will see different job-boards being used as examples as well as different companies.
Keep in mind that this strategy can be applied to quite literally any field and almost any level of experience - from Intern to C Suite executives. Let’s dig in.
Step 1: look at the openings.
Time 1-2 minutes.
Step 2: verify the openings.
Time: 1-3 minutes.
Many startups forget to remove listings from websites like YC Jobs, Wellfound etc. so always check their original website to verify that the company is still looking to fill the position. On top of that you might be able to find roles that the team hasn’t posted anywhere BUT on their website.
Go to the company’s website→ scroll to the very bottom→ careers/opportunities/work with us.
Here is the number of listings I found on Rattle’s career page:
As you can see, there are 9 extra listings that aren’t even mentioned on Wellfound. I’m not in HR so I have no clue why they don’t duplicate all the listings but the point is - always check the original career page to verify the listing and find more roles.
Step 3: apply through the career page.
Time: 1-2 minutes.
Application itself is almost useless and yields ~2% interview rate meanwhile email follow-ups (cornerstone of this strategy) bumps that number to over 60%. But if you skip the formal application part, there is a good chance that you will pass off as a smudge mofo who thinks that they are an exception to all the rules. Don’t be that mofo and follow the rules before going further.
Step 4: strategy kicking in - find contact information
Time: 2-4 minutes.
Depending on the site where you are looking for job postings, it might not include the main contact for the position but many do. Example:
If the name of a recruiter is included your job is halfway done, all you need to do now is to find contact info of that person through Snov.io, Apollo.io, Seamless.ai or any other email sourcing tool. For this example, I’ll use Apollo.io
Email and LinkedIn for the primary contact is ready but before drafting your email, I recommend getting contact info of 2-3 more people on the team who are related to the position that you’re applying to.
Step 5: find more people to reach.
Time: 4-10 minutes
Now, how do you find those extra people? Use common sense and email-searching tools mentioned above (Snov.io, Apollo.io or Seamless.ai). All these tools allow you to search contacts based on the company name, seniority level, location, the department they work at and any keywords you choose. At the end of this article there will be a long video showing an entire step-by-step process of doing so, but here are a few rules I follow while looking for the right contacts:
Rule 1. Company size matters. If the company has less than 100 employees, you don’t even need to mess with the filters, just scroll through all the contacts on your email-searching tool and add employees that seem like a good fit.
Rule 2. Big companies = more targeting required. If the company has more than 100 employees, that’s when the filters kick in. The head of sales at AT&T won’t even glance at your application to be a regional account executive in San Francisco, meanwhile someone with a title of a “Sales Talent Acquisition” working for AT&T and located in California will know exactly who to forward this application to or might even review the application themselves.
For big companies, aim lower in the chain of command (Director, Manager) and target your current location even if you’re applying for a remote position. So if you’re a software engineer in California applying for a remote US-based position, it is best to look for HR and Engineering team members located in California.
Rule 3. Don’t overreach. It takes time to find the right people to connect to in a company - regardless of the size. Even when you use templates and automated follow-ups every contact takes time so I suggest you stick to a maximum of 8 contacts per company, regardless of the size. You will still very likely get a response but save yourself some time.
Example of the persona that I use to find the right people:
This type of search, depending on the company size results in about 3-20 contacts that I might reach out to. Once again, I never reach out to more than 8 people per company regardless of the size just to save myself some time. Example:
Step 6: email and LinkedIn outreach.
Time: 5-15 minutes
Once you find a few contacts that you want to reach out to, it’s time to draft the email. It takes a good 20 minutes to draft a thoughtful, custom email so I recommend using a template that you will be slightly altering for each company.
Here is the template that I use:
Subject line: Re: Position Name discussion
Body: Hello NAME,
I saw your posting for a POSITION and a salesperson is as good as their follow ups so after applying I decided to follow up directly via email. Hope you don't mind the persistence:)
Here are 4 key bullet points on why I think I'll fit this role perfectly:
I have over 7 years of sales experience most of which in startups (2-60 ppl teams) - ownership mentality is burned into my brain
I was working full-time at a YC-backed startup as a Growth Executive while also being a full-time student at UC Berkeley (class of 2022) so time management is my second nature
At my Growth Executive position, I've built out strategic partnerships with companies like Mercury, Brex, Carta, Notion and many others that yielded ~50k MRR
As a Partnerships Channel Manager, I've built out channel partnerships from 20 to 11,000 partners resulting in over $70k MRR at the moment of my resignation
I would be happy to hop on a brief call to discuss your current sales goals and how I might help NAME’s team meet those goals! My resume is attached for your reference.
This message isn’t perfect by any stretch of imagination but it follows all the rules of an outreach that gets responses:
I state that I followed the rules setup by the company by applying through an official channel. BUT I think I’m such a good fit for the role that I went a step further and reached out to them personally.
In the bullet points I highlight my past experiences that are relevant to most positions that I’m applying to. If I’m very interested in a company I’m applying to, I might change some of the bullet points to be catered uniquely for this role.
Somewhat of a vague call-to-action that allows me to throw in the last piece of customization (company name) as well as state the goal of this outreach - hop on a call. I keep it vague because in many cases this email gets forwarded to a more relevant team member.
No need to follow my exact email template - just keep your emails brief, be clear with your intentions, flex your past experiences and you’ll do great.
Step 7: automated follow-up email chain.
Time: 40 minutes to set up, 0 minutes to use later.
The initial outreach gets a response roughly 40% of the time but I’m not going to miss out on the other 60% so after sending the initial email, I toss all the contacts that I’ve reached out to into an automated follow-up email chain. The chain looks like this:
This part is a bit more complex and honestly, not necessary but I like to be tenacious with my outreach and don’t like missing out on some great companies that I really want to work for. I also wanted to give you a peek at what I plan to cover in the next part of this series;)
Tangible results.
I’ve been applying to jobs for less than 7 days - starting on 4/18 and middle of the day on 4/25 being the current day, here are the stats I can share with you:
Number of companies I’ve applied to: 38
Number of first interviews scheduled or already taken: 15
Number of rejections without the first interview: 7
The response rate is through the roof and once the automated sequence mentioned above does its job, I predict that the response rate will get close to 95%.
I taught my brother (who is a software engineer, not a salesperson) this strategy after he was laid off from Meta and he got numbers even better than what I have right now. He secured a new role within a month after leaving Meta.
This strategy works. It’s a fact.
Want this done FOR you?
The only downside of this strategy is that it requires a lot of effort, persistence and a slight learning curve to get better results.
That’s why I’m considering kicking off a side-project in this direction so if you or anyone you know is looking for a job and would like to see interviews for your dream jobs start rolling in, just respond to this email and we’ll find some time to talk.
Essentially, what I plan to do here is implement this entire strategy FOR you, while you only have to do interviews and get that job;) I have no clue how I will structure the pricing for this but all of you (my stubstack followers) will most certainly get this at cost. So if you’re curious - respond to this email or hit the button below.
This article was written in its entirety by a human and edited at 11:30pm so apologies for any mistakes - sincerely yours, Konstantin.
Super useful!! Do the next part soon