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The Cold Email

zachholman.com

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Re: The Cold Email

#81

Post by agos »

hack1312 wrote: post #62
tombert wrote: post #29

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…

Erlang is so freaking cool, I’ve been itching for a project to use it (or Elixir, especially because I’m a huge Ruby fan) with ever since I learned about it/OTP when digging into the internals of Chef (server) and RabbitMQ, followed up by the book “Learn You Some Erlang For Great Good!” (an adaption of /book inspired by another wonderful book I read called “Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!”). Non-sequitur but I us…

I'm here to make your itch worse! we're using Elixir to build a fintech SaaS and it's by far the most dependable, boring, lovable part of our stack. We built critical parts with it (syncing data with external services, for one) and were just able to basically forget about it for years because it just... ran?

Erlang/Elixir are definitely not the best for everything, but if there's a good match it's unbeatable

Re: The Cold Email

#82

Post by dingdong2026 »

nicbou wrote: post #73

My closest friendships and two relationships started with a cold email. I love when strangers write to me and I give them my full attention. I also write words of praise to bloggers. A simple heartfelt email goes a long way. An LLM-authored email goes right to spam. I struggle to apply this openness to real life, where the rejection is a lot more instantaneous and awkward. All the data shows that it works and that fa…

Do it despite the suck. At some point you grow indifferent to it. The point is not to avoid the discomfort but to make "rejection" feel like a meaningless prick. Like walking on grass with bare feet: yes, sometimes you step on a tiny stick or whatever, but walking in shoes instead would be such a waste of a pleasant experience. :)

Re: The Cold Email

#83

Post by vdanielpop »

seanhunter wrote: post #72

One thing about this is you never can tell how one thing will lead to another, so even if you don’t get a good response to your cold email, if you do it well, it can still unlock doors later on that you never expected to. To illustrate this I’m going to share a personal anecdote that actually isn’t a cold email, but it’s similar enough that hopefully it demonstrates the point. I made the crucial connection in a meeti…

That's such a nice story! I'd like to think that having integrity pays off on the long run.

Re: The Cold Email

#84

Post by heikkilevanto »

petesergeant wrote: post #77
heikkilevanto wrote: post #75

Send me a "cold email" or any other sort of spam, and I will never see anything more from you, as your address will be blocked. Spamming is against the law here in EU, and for a good reason.

Are you a gatekeeper behind which any fantastic opportunities lie?

No, just a retired programmer, and sick and tired of all the spam I keep receiving. Don't have "fantastic opportunities" and am not looking for any.

Re: The Cold Email

#85

Post by nicbou »

dingdong2026 wrote: post #82
nicbou wrote: post #73

My closest friendships and two relationships started with a cold email. I love when strangers write to me and I give them my full attention. I also write words of praise to bloggers. A simple heartfelt email goes a long way. An LLM-authored email goes right to spam. I struggle to apply this openness to real life, where the rejection is a lot more instantaneous and awkward. All the data shows that it works and that fa…

Do it despite the suck. At some point you grow indifferent to it. The point is not to avoid the discomfort but to make "rejection" feel like a meaningless prick. Like walking on grass with bare feet: yes, sometimes you step on a tiny stick or whatever, but walking in shoes instead would be such a waste of a pleasant experience. :)

That's in line with all the wisdom I've received. A rejection is not a measure of your worth, just the cost of doing business. After all I reject a lot of perfectly fine people for various reasons.

Re: The Cold Email

#86

Post by tonyedgecombe »

gerdesj wrote: post #30

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…

In a world with LinkedIn perhaps sending a letter is a good way to bypass the hordes.

Re: The Cold Email

#87

Post by impendia »

mancerayder wrote: post #34
stdatomic wrote: post #24

Yeah people replied to cold emails back when they received one once every 3 months. Now we get dozens a day. Straight into the garbage.

Almost all of them are salespeople, sometimes finding my phone number and calling me on my personal number, even early in the morning. Insane stuff. That's 90% of cold calls. 8% are recruiters (also salespeople) telling me they either know a genius candidate or they can get me. 2%, that's probably the topic of this thread.

Yup. I get lots of cold emails from salespeople whose products I couldn't possibly give less of a shit about. But I agree, those aren't what this thread is talking about.

Re: The Cold Email

#88

Post by ShinyLeftPad »

lukan wrote: post #80
assimpleaspossi wrote: post #17

I started to write my story here along the same lines. Perhaps more along the lines of don't be afraid to ask. Almost every job I got, and they've mostly been pretty fantastic, I got cause I called and ask for it. I was told some of those jobs just weren't available or impossible to get but I called and got them. One job the manager wasn't even thinking about it till I called but I got him thinking about it and he hi…

"It never hurt to ask." Rejection can hurt if you are fragile, but one can learn to handle and accept it.

Being ghosted hurts more

Re: The Cold Email

#89

Post by cryptopian »

heikkilevanto wrote: post #75

Send me a "cold email" or any other sort of spam, and I will never see anything more from you, as your address will be blocked. Spamming is against the law here in EU, and for a good reason.

And for the record, it's fine for people to set their boundaries wherever they want. All the author loses in this case is a bit of time writing one email
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