Wealth of Networking

If you’re looking for a job abroad, networking with strangers can open some doors. So how do you choose who to connect and network with?

If you’re tired of filling out job applications and getting no response, and you’ve been thinking you should change your strategy… Well, I’ll be fair: You got a point.

No, of course the ATS didn’t automatically reject your resume. That’s more myth and folklore than reality. So, “bypassing the ATS” and that nonsense should not be in your plans. But, well, if you want to stand out, one slight strategy change might be to start relying on networking or on referrals.

Referrals (at least the genuine ones) are very persuasive. According to a Wall Street Journal article, applicants with referrals had a 50% chance of advancing past an initial resume review, compared with 12% odds for other external candidates. Also, Anna, a recruiter from Big Tech, told me that ~80% of hires are sourced directly by her team. If you compound those two stats, it’s evident that being referred works better than just applying through a portal.

And why do referrals carry so much weight? Simple. They come with a built-in trust factor. When someone within a company vouches for you, it signals to hiring managers that you're a credible candidate worth considering.

But, yes, you already knew all that, or suspected it. Maybe you didn’t know it was so influential, and now you do.

It’s just that a referral is not the only way to set a foot in a company. And there’s no “apply via the ATS vs. get referred” dichotomy as in the “Light side vs. the Dark side of the force.” Like I teased already, there’s actually a third, separate strategy which I’ll develop here, and it involves networking.

Because, you can also network with someone at the company you’d love to work in, and ask that person for advice on how the company hires, what was a standout in their resume when they got hired, and what the hiring cycles look like. That person who you networked won’t necessarily refer you. But, considering the referral is almost impossible, you don’t need that referral to stand out from every other candidate.

This article will focus on how to network with people so that they can help you get a job. And for that, I’ll tell you what has worked with me when looking for new clients in my entrepreneurial career. What has made a difference for me has been the following:

“If you don’t know someone at your target company, you can look for someone who has something in common with you, connect with them, and ask them for all kinds of help — not just a referral”

There’s a tremendous wealth in networks. I’m a recruiter and entrepreneur, and I got 20% of my clients by using this strategy (although my move was a bit more daring — I’ll elaborate on that). Read on.

So, how do referrals actually work?

Look, there’s a clear lesson to be learned from this article:

If someone can refer you, use it. ^{But, of course, you knew that.}

And most times, you don’t have a friend, a former boss, or a university study pal at Apple in Cupertino, and you still need the job. This article is for you. Still, let’s talk about referrals because I can give testimony about them as a recruiter.

When someone refers you, they’re usually submitting your name and resume internally, through a company portal or directly to a recruiter. In some cases, they’ll also write a short endorsement. This internal handoff automatically improves your visibility. Instead of being just another applicant in the queue, you become “the candidate Alex from Engineering told me about.”

And companies love this. Referrals might lead to better hires, meaning people who onboard faster and stay longer. That’s why many companies actively reward employees for referring new talent. The incentives can range from gift cards to several thousand dollars in bonus cash (I know someone who got a big reward from Intel just for recommending a candidate!)

A referral is effortless if your “referrer” is a friend, a former manager, or someone you got good affinity with.

People only refer other people they can vouch for (mostly)

In my career, I was able to score referrals from people I had never met. But that’s the exception. Most software engineers and HR managers mention that they’ll only refer people they can trust their name on. This is logical. No-one wants to refer an anonymous SE from wherever only to then realize that person was a fraud, a freeloader, or actually a junior developer in disguise. There’s skin in the game in a referral.

Many colleagues in the recruiting space confirm the following: Referrals are valuable as long as they’re from someone the referrer worked with. Giovanni spends most of his time hiring, but he concurrently mentioned he typically doesn’t recommend or refer someone to a company unless he knows them well or has worked with them directly. And he’s an experienced voice.

So, what I’ll focus on is on how to network successfully. Remember, you’ll be networking with people you’ve never met.

I’ll use LinkedIn as a starting point for this guide, so you can read my articles about getting your LinkedIn ready, up, and running →

Start with people who have a lot in common with you

If you want to work at Apple, ACME, or Skynet, and you can’t get that referral, you can improve your odds by networking. And remember: You need to find a right candidate for you to network with.

That person you network with could tell you:

• When is the company actually hiring or checking the ongoing applications

• What piece of tech or narrative they’re genuinely interested in

• What pain points HR has so you can put them into your cover letter or application

• What specific words you could insert in your resume to secure an interview

• If there’s any C-level who’s also from Ukraine (or Bangladesh, or Estonia, or wherever you’re from; I’ll explain why this matters right below)

To network and get advice from someone you haven’t even met, you need to find someone who might be interested in connecting with you. The best way to find someone who might want to connect with you over LinkedIn is finding that shared, common ground.

So, when looking for someone to network with, common ground will be your strongest asset. Shared experiences (be it attending the same university, hailing from the same city, or speaking the same language) are what you’ll build your case on.

If you're a software engineer from São Paulo and want to work in Amsterdam, for example, it can be smart to find Brazilian professionals at the companies you are keen to work for. Sending a message in Portuguese will probably capture their attention. And if you’re browsing LinkedIn and you realize you studied at the same university or that you have some friends in common, then you have an additional asset over there. People naturally want to support someone from the same background as them. I don’t say this as an anthropologist. I know this because this method has worked for me.

LinkedIn’s advanced search filters can really help to find and connect with the right people. If you click on the “All filters” option, you can narrow your search to folks working at your target companies who also went to your university or grew up in your hometown. Take advantage of LinkedIn’s Alumni Tool too. Head to your university’s LinkedIn page and click on the “Alumni” tab. From there, you can filter by where people live, where they work, and what they do. The Alumni tool is not quite well know. Here’s a video I found, and it explains how you could use it pretty neatly: check out this video.

The goal is to make a real connection, so make your messages personal, talk about things you have in common, and respect their time.

Outreach message: Saying the quiet part out loud, or building rapport?

So you’ve found someone at your dream company who shares your background—maybe you went to the same university, grew up in the same city, or speak the same language. Now what?

There are two clear paths: One is to build rapport over time; the other is to share your intentions right from the get-go.

And it depends on your style. If you’re more of the rapport-building type, you can start with a quick intro, just like the image I shared before:

“Hi there — I see we attended the same university. I’d like to stay in touch since we have similar careers.”

And that’s how it starts. Then, over the following weeks, you can engage with that person by liking their posts or commenting on them (provided they ever do it. Some professionals are lurkers on LinkedIn, and this strategy won’t work so well in those cases.)

Then, when you’ve successfully completed the rapport-making, and you’ve networked with that person, you can shoot your questions about the role.

The other way into this course is to network directly, and say the quiet part out loud. This is where most people freeze. They overthink the message or, worse, send something so generic it gets ignored.

But you don’t have to send a long or contrived message. Just stick to the basic stuff: You’re looking for a job, and you want their insider tips.

Also, you might want to be straightforward. This depends on each person. My style is to be clear from the get-go about what I want. But sometimes you might also want to check if your target company is actually good to work at. So that’s a very good breaker on LinkedIn. If you connect with that network node, you can then write to them a message with your intentions. See:

“Hey pal. We both studied Engineering at the University of Monterrey. I work as a Software Developer at Skynet in México. I’m connecting with you because you work in the Netherlands and I plan on the same. I noticed your current company has an opening for a Software Engineer. Want to connect so you tell me how you’ve been doing there? I found it funny that they specify COBOL as a key technology. Do you actually code in COBOL?”

(This, of course, would be written in the two person’s native Spanish, without an LLM. Depending on your LinkedIn plan, you might need to trim some characters, but the message stands.)

Is this too blunt? It might be. There are styles and styles. Also, each culture has its own way of connecting with potential colleagues. I prefer this style over connecting, talking about sports or the weather, and then suddenly doing an about-face to say, “Actually, I was writing here because I need your help” But it’s on you.

There are plenty of other paths to get it, though. Check this one where you mention what you have in common, and you’re clear about what you're asking. Make it easy for them to help you—and show appreciation, no matter the outcome.

Here’s a simple structure that could work:

1. Start with the connection: “Hi Jane, I saw that we both studied at University of Warsaw and thought I’d reach out.”

2. Explain what puzzles you: “I’m planning to apply for Software Engineer at Skynet and noticed you work there. I see that the compensation is very competitive there. I wondered if work-life balance is somewhat bad there.”

3. Ask the question, and be polite: “Care to connect with me, and you can tell me what’s your experience like?”

A few tips:

• Don’t copy-paste the same message to ten people at once, and don’t use an LLM. You’re writing in your language! People can tell if it’s low-effort slop.

• Keep it short and kind. You’re asking for a favor, not pitching a VC.

If you don’t feel comfortable with these paths, you can still connect and build rapport over time before you ask for the favor. That’s up to you.

As a Ukrainian, I landed 20% of my clients thanks to this strategy: I searched for Ukrainians working at my target companies and asked them for help. It really does work.

You can even get a referral through this method, but it’s just a nice-to-have, and it’s not very likely you’ll score it.

Why asking for help with cold outreach 🧊📩 is not as effective if you don’t have a common background

Cold outreach, as I suggest it, should be targeted to someone you have common ground with.

If you don’t have that someone at your target company, you’re less likely to succeed, and they’re less likely to help you out. This is because they don’t have many incentives.

On the internet, you can definitely connect with someone without a shared background if you’re giving them something in return. This is the case of sales outreach, where you’re offering a product or service that will ease a pain point, and that’s the attention-catcher. When putting together this article, I spoke with a former tech salesperson who won most of his clients via cold messaging, and he told me he didn’t need the common background to push his message. But he was offering something attractive, and that was what he built the conversation around. He did not call for assistance in exchange for no reward.

When you’re just asking for help, with nothing in return, then addressing the common ground will make it easier for you to get a reply. Guess it’s just how our societies are coded.

Carly Rae Jepsen certainly mastered it with “Call Me Maybe,” but it’s true: Cold outreach won’t always work. But sometimes it does, and one message can lead to a connection. Keep it simple, be polite, and don’t overthink it. People are often more open to helping than you’d expect.

Do referrals through cold outreach even exist?

Referrals and networking to build rapport are different steps in your job hunting process. I’ve already covered how to ask for help with common-ground cold outreach and with regular cold outreach. In those two cases, you build rapport, and if you eventually get a referral, it’s just a nice-to-have.

Besides those two methods, you could also get a referral through cold outreach.

This is not a typo. It sounds outlandish at first, but you could actually get a job at FAANG with cold-sourced referrals.

Just keep in mind this is an outlier scenario, and you shouldn’t put all your prayers in this jar. But, to be fair, there are some ways into freezing cold outreach that work.

For example, Abhishek Divekar, an ML engineer, has a complete playbook on how to ask him for a referral at Amazon. That’s right: This person will refer you (not answer your questions and such) if you tick off his checklist. I strongly suggest you read this playbook because, as a recruiter myself, his playbook sounds very thorough. He does explain in the comments that this process won’t work for cross-country referrals, but it’s still worth a read. Exponent, a platform to prepare for tech interviews, also put together a guide for Meta referrals.

Making use of referral platforms

I mentioned before some guides on how to get referred to FAANG companies. I want to put the magnifying glass on it. Occasionally, your immediate network isn’t enough. And sending cold messages on LinkedIn can feel like shouting into the void. So you can try with something else.

With Exponent’s referral portal, you submit your resume and the role you’re interested in. Then, employees at companies like Google, Meta, or Airbnb can review your profile and decide if they’d like to refer you. Refer Me works similarly but gives you another layer of personalization. You can filter referrers by company and role, send a short message, and start a supportive back-and-forth. The mood is less transactional, more “let’s see if we can make this work.”

Naturally, these platforms are not magical. You still need to put effort into your profile and your pitch. It just gives you a starting point.

If you’re about to invest time and energy into any of these strategies, you should leave cold referrals last.

How to network your way into that job abroad (and why referrals are just a nice-to-have)

Networking with strangers requires learning to play the game with a bit of strategy and a lot of human touch. It won’t really matter if you’re the best COBOL programmer with this technique. You’ll only get so far with this strategy if you can actually warm up to that connection so that it shifts from a cold one to someone who can give you invaluable tips everyone else doesn’t have.

It doesn’t matter if you’re reaching out to someone from your hometown, a classmate you don’t even remember sharing class with, or a stranger on LinkedIn, the same principles apply: personalize your message, be clear and respectful, and make it easy for the other person to say yes.

Yes, it can feel awkward at first. And no, not every message will get a response. But building this skill is one of the most useful tools you’ll carry through your entire career, especially if you’re aiming to work abroad.

Also, even if referrals are incredibly powerful (I addressed that at the beginning of the article, and yes, I just can’t deny their influence), don’t think they’re indispensable. You can get a job without a referral, and even without networking. But networking will give you the edge.

You can mix and match this strategy with my No Employer Required strategy. The No Employer Required series checks on many pathways into a job abroad, some of which don’t even demand employment.

If you’re looking for more advice like this, and actual job leads compiled for international candidates, you can subscribe to The Global Move. This is where I share everything I know about relocating thanks to smart career moves. Good luck!