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The Cold Email

zachholman.com

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Re: The Cold Email

#21

Post by boplicity »

saltamimi wrote: post #3

I agree wholeheartedly with this article and this is something I'm struggling with my daughter about: the worst thing anybody can say is no and in some cases, they already said no. If you ask (or ask again), you might get a really good answer or more.

Build up with small challenges. Not sure how old your daughter is, but, for example, our 7 year got a gift card. They wanted to know how much it was worth -- so they were the ones who had to go up to the counter to ask the employee. Just practicing going into uncomfortable or unfamiliar situations is valuable, and leads to confidence for the bigger stuff.

Re: The Cold Email

#22

Post by ButlerianJihad »

ralfhn wrote: post #19

I got my first job in the U.S by emailing the local PHP user group introducing myself. The CEO of a dev agency was on the list, and 2 weeks later I had a job offer. Moving to a new country not knowing anyone and with barely any money, fair to say that one email changed my life.

You joined a special interest technical group which is specifically for professional networking and informal meetups and you sent a general email to the entire group which led to a hiring process. Nothing about that is “cold calling” or “cold email”.

Likewise, the posted article describes a Tweet from someone who announced they were hiring specific skilled professionals for an open position, and the author privately responded to that informal job posting. That is not a “cold call” or “cold email” just because you didn’t go through Indeed dot com.

But if you do send actual cold emails, then you undoubtedly have the prerogative to post and say that “ Ghosted Me During the Hiring Process!!1” /s

Re: The Cold Email

#23

Post by akoboldfrying »

andy99 wrote: post #12
areoform wrote: post #8

I read a dozen inbound cold emails every day. I used to love it. I don't anymore, because every other single email uses The Sentence. Or, The Paragraph. Whatever model these people use, it always always puts in The Sentence (I don't want to disclose it publicly! I'm running an experiment. I'll write it up when it concludes. :) ). Or, worse, The Paragraph. Please use models to research people and learn about them. But…

There’s such an opportunity, it has never been easier to differentiate oneself now, all you have to do is ignore whatever online advice or LLMs say and do your own thing, it’s sad that almost nobody does it.

This makes me think of an email support request I got at a job a long time ago that began with the words "Fucking cunts how fucking dare you", before gradually cooling down and gesturing broadly at what the problem was, without ever reaching for the crutch of punctuation. I printed it out and stuck it on the wall.

HN reader, now you too know what it takes to make a powerful human impression via email.

Re: The Cold Email

#25

Post by flamadiddle »

The author is doing his article a disservice by calling this cold email. He just sent a few one-off emails to strangers. That's quite different than the BDR team at Startup Du Jour scraping LinkedIn and blasting out an enless stream of "hope this message finds you well" slop.

I'd wager that the majority of us do not differentiate between cold email and spam, especially in the AI era.

Re: The Cold Email

#26

Post by rtpg »

sudo_cowsay wrote: post #9

Is human-like cold emails (with stuff like :D) better or worse than professionally written formal emails? Im a student and would like some tips. I know it depends on the situation but what would you rather see? And based on your experience, what would you respond to more?

Best emails I've gotten are terse (nice subject line getting to the point) and a no-nonsense body.

I think trying to make a "playful" personality turns off some people and is more work than just getting to the point. Opening with "here's the thing I want/what I'm reaching out for". then reasons. Then close out with a thank you.

Added bonus: short emails tend to get replies more often in my experience.

Re: The Cold Email

#27

Post by rtpg »

areoform wrote: post #8

I read a dozen inbound cold emails every day. I used to love it. I don't anymore, because every other single email uses The Sentence. Or, The Paragraph. Whatever model these people use, it always always puts in The Sentence (I don't want to disclose it publicly! I'm running an experiment. I'll write it up when it concludes. :) ). Or, worse, The Paragraph. Please use models to research people and learn about them. But…

Hey areoform,

I just read your post on hacker news about people using The Sentence, and couldn't agree more!

Re: The Cold Email

#28

Post by 6stringmerc »

This is why I tend to write real letters using my IBM Selectric III and send them via physical mail. I enjoy writing. Writing with purpose is time well spent. 90% of the time I get no response. I’m not actively trying to find the next recipient, it just comes naturally, so I see no reason to stop.

When is the last time you got an actual typed or hand written letter? That’s my advantage.

Re: The Cold Email

#29

Post by tombert »

Something I learned awhile ago is that most people that I consider "celebrities" really aren't that famous, and as such are generally pretty happy to respond to emails.

In ~2014 I sent an email to Joe Armstrong (one of the creators of Erlang) asking some questions about concurrency because I still didn't fully understand why Erlang was supposed to be better for it. I expected him to just point me to an FAQ or simply not respond [1], but instead he wrote a very long, detailed explanation about the rationale of Erlang's design. It was well-written and it made a lot of things "click" in my brain.

That simple act by Joe was extremely instrumental in my career, I think for the better. I became very interested in Erlang, but also just concurrency theory and distributed systems, and I would like to think I almost understand it now :)

He and I would exchange emails occasionally over the next few years and he seemed genuinely enthusiastic about programming, Erlang, and people using it, and despite me barely knowing the guy, I was genuinely pretty sad when he passed away in 2019.

I think about that a lot; if I hadn't sent a dumb cold email my entire life would likely be very different.

[1] Which, to be clear, would have been perfectly fine!

Re: The Cold Email

#30

Post by gerdesj »

I'm probably somewhat older than most here. What OP is describing is what used to be normal and should still be!

In the past it was normal to write a CV (resume) and a covering letter that was mildly tailored to each target firm, either in response to a job advert or on spec. I'm not talking quill pens here - you'd do a mail merge and buy a really large book of stamps.

Linked In is possibly the worst thing that ever happened to HR but it was inevitable and someone else would do it instead if they did not.

The whole point is ... show interest, actual interest in an employer you are interested in and whatever they are doing. Find a way in. If they only use LLM based 'bots and can't be arsed with a 'phone call then fuck 'em!

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