Recruiter Advice for Reaching Out

Wouldn’t it be great to get insider information from multiple recruiters at various organizations all in one place? Well, look no further. Here are some great tips for making sure your outreach is working. Recruiters from companies such as IBM, Penguin/RandomHouse, Nightfall AI, Intuitive Surgical, EA, and Facebook, have shared some of their top tips for internship and job seekers.

As you read through the advice, you’ll see three main themes.

Sign saying "for hire"

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo

  1. Messages customized with the recipient in mind stand out
    • “A message that stands out is one that is clearly tailored to me and my employer. There is a lot of content on my profile so when I see a generic message it tells me the student copied and pasted to a bunch of people.”
  2. Concise messages are best
    • “I would say keep it short and get straight to the point about your work experience – tell me in a couple of sentences about the work you did at your most recent internship(s). Maybe add one sentence on why it’s relevant to the job at hand. The email shouldn’t be paragraphs long. Also let me know when you are graduating.”
  3. Demonstrating a true interest in the person and/or organization makes an impact
    • “Think carefully about what industries and companies interest you and send a few quality messages rather than a lot of generic messages. Students that stand out to me indicate that an internship with our company is one of their top goals/interests and then give background as to why they are so interested and/or how they learned about us.”

Now take a look at messages you’ve sent in the past to recruiters. Could any of them use a little editing with these three themes in mind?

This post is part of Season for Connection 2021, a winter break initiative focused on how to conduct outreach and connect with professionals in a way that gets results. View the launch post here to see all articles compiled in an Outreach Guide.

By Jenny Johnson (she/her)
Jenny Johnson (she/her) Assistant Director, Engineering Master's Career Services & Professional Development