Swapped from cold emails to LinkedIn messages for 3 months straight

I sent 50 cold emails to hiring managers in Austin and got 2 replies, then tried 50 LinkedIn messages to the same types of roles and got 8 conversations. Has anyone else found that direct messaging beats formal outreach for getting callbacks?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_wendy10d ago

I actually read a study recently that said LinkedIn messages get about 3 times more replies than cold emails. That matches your experience pretty closely. People seem to respond better to something that feels more personal and less like a mass blast.

the_sarah10d ago

Makes total sense to me. I get so many cold emails every day that don't even mention my name or what I actually do, it's basically spam at this point. At least with a LinkedIn message you can see they took the two seconds to look at your profile and tailor it a little. It feels way less like you're just a number on some list they bought. I honestly started ignoring cold emails completely unless the subject line is super specific to something I care about. It's exhausting trying to filter through all that noise, so I'm with you on this one.