Job search outreach
How to message a recruiter on LinkedIn (real examples)
You have 300 characters for a connection note, one shot before they decide, and a fear of being the fifth message they ignored this week. Here is the structure that works, three examples you can adapt, and what to do when nothing comes back.
Why most recruiter messages get ignored
Almost every cold recruiter message on LinkedIn is a version of the same paragraph: a greeting, “I hope you are doing well”, a statement that the sender is looking for opportunities, and a request to “keep my profile in mind”. It asks the recruiter to do all the work — to open your profile, guess what role fits, and remember you. Recruiters read dozens of these a day; identical ones blur together.
The messages that get answered do the opposite of asking for time. They name a specific role, show one concrete piece of evidence that you can do it, and stop. A recruiter should be able to answer you in one line, without opening a second tab.
The 300-character structure
LinkedIn caps connection notes at 300 characters, which is roughly two sentences. That is enough if every character has a job. The structure that fits:
- Why them, now. One clause naming the role or team — it shows this is not a bulk blast.
- One proof. A single concrete thing you have done that matches the job posting’s own words. Numbers beat adjectives: “cut deploy time 40%” survives skimming, “passionate and driven” does not.
- A zero-effort close. “Open to a chat?” or nothing at all. Never “please review my CV” — that is homework.
Drop the greeting if you need the room. “Hi Sara” plus the three parts above is already 120 characters; filler like hope-you-are-well is what pushes you over the limit.
Three examples
Each of these anchors to one line of the job posting and one proof from the CV. Adapt the shape, not the specifics — the specifics are what make it work.
“Hi Sara — I saw the Backend Engineer opening on your team. I’ve shipped Python services on AWS for 3 years, most recently cutting API p95 latency 40% for a 2M-user product. If you’re still interviewing, I’d welcome a chat.”
“Hi Marcus — your team’s move to Kubernetes caught my eye. I migrated a 12-service stack to it last year (downtime: zero deploys since). If DataCorp grows that side, I’d love to be considered.”
“Hi Lena — I noticed you joined DataCorp’s growth team after your time at Bloom. I’m interviewing for the lifecycle role there (5 years in email/CRM at two startups). Any view on the team you’d share?”
The third one is the most under-used: a message to someone who does the job you want, asking for a read on the team, converts into referrals far more often than a direct plea to the recruiter — and people who answer it tend to forward your name internally.
The follow-up that revives a silence
Most people send once and never again; the reply often goes to whoever followed up. The cadence that works without feeling like a nuisance: a first touch, one follow-up about three days later, and a last one about a week after that. A follow-up adds one new sentence of information — a result, a link, a note that you applied — it never repeats the request. After two quiet follow-ups, stop and put the person down as a no for this campaign, not forever.
From one message to a campaign
A single good message to a single recruiter is a lottery ticket. The job hunt turns when you run the same discipline against a whole company: a note for the recruiter, one for the hiring manager, one for a peer who can refer you, and the two follow-ups each of them needs — every message built from your CV against that specific posting. That is a campaign, and it is what CareerReach’s sprint builds for you: paste your CV and the posting, get the messages written, work through the board.
CareerReach itself is built and run end to end by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is how a one-time $29 product can stay this small and this focused.