I love subscriber questions – please ask me yours! I answer each question to help you, and then anonymize them here to help us all improve our chances for a dream digital development job
Here is this week’s question:
My usual response to this question is two-fold.
But what do others think about this situation? Luckily, Quartz just wrote about this exact issue.
In the recent Quartz article “How to network with job contacts you don’t know well,” Alison Green, who writes the popular “Ask a Manager” blog, points out that asking people you don’t know to give you a reference with their employer rarely ends well:
As I said above, its best to start with people you know and then work towards your target with very clear action items. Emily Miethner, founder of the career website FindSpark says that you should think of your email as a mini-cover letter and include:
And always, always follow up with your progress. Let your friend and their friend know when you interview, accept, and start. By helping you, they’ve invested in your success. Give them the feedback to know you succeeded.
The job search process is hard and never-ending. We all have questions. What is yours? Ask me your career questions now.
Thanks for reading this far,
Wayan
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