What are your opinions on cold adding with someone on Linkedin who is a "2nd connection" but that you don't know at all? But would like to develop a relationship with that person for networking purposes. Is this something that really should not be done period? And for those in the industry, how do you react when an undergraduate that didn't go to the school you went to tries and connect with you?
Scenarios: As far as networking on LinkedIn goes, I have connected with some people in PE/VC that I don't necessarily know but have talked to and asked general questions and would like to (at some point) leverage that into a working relationship. Is that kind of frowned upon or is that acceptable? If so, would it be best to always leave a small note beforehand?
EDITED: 8/25/17
it goes down in the dm
You need relevant coursework before you begin networking.
Bump
If I have not met them, I do not accept them. Also try to avoid connecting with friends or acquaintances without professional relevance
lolololololololol
I started taking this advice a while back. Definitely important to construct your LinkedIn network differently from how you would do it on FB or IG. If you're just connecting with everyone, you're most likely decreasing your network's quality over time.
I'm accepting people I don't know until I hit the 500+ barrier, then I am removing them.
Why not send an email first? From my experience, people aren't overly fond of random kids adding them out of the blue. I'd follow the standard networking approach.
Usually if they accept I will email the person from there on because a lot of the time their email isn't listed in their bio for whatever place they work at or I am not sure how to "guess" the email format. And so far I have had some success doing this and have even gotten on the phone with said persons.
What to you is the standard networking approach?
The usual email>phone>coffee procedure. Tons of guides here on WSO and elseshere. After all, networking is all about creating relationships. For the email formats, check the WSO Company Database. LinkedIn is useful for the initial "scan", aka professional stalking, of your networking candidates. Cold adding, and even messaging via InMail, rarely works and I'm surprised you even had some success off of it.
I'm a VC. If a rando who's like an IB or consultant adds me with hopes of "breaking into VC" I might add them if they seem legit. If an undergrad junior or senior from my college adds me I'll probably accept. If I accept your linkedin request from either of these situations there's 50% chance I'll take time to chat with them - really depends on my schedule that week/month and your credibility level.
If you're in high school, a fresh/sophmore, or you didn't go to my school there's a very low percentage chance of me accepting your invitation. Like you're 19 and wanna be a VC? Of course you do, it's a cool fucking job. Now go do something tangible about it.
Just being honest.
No it's good to be honest about it
Largely agree. Worst people are guys who sent you an invitation, you accept and then they wait for 6 months and at some point send you message being all salty that you never messaged them. I guess I missed the announcement where networking was reduced to just sending LinkedIn invitations.
I met a lot of interesting people through "LinkedIn network". Few of these helped me a lot for work advices, profile modeling, or only accepted to grab a coffee together for informal talks. Don't bother people, right, but if you're polite and well behaved why not
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