I got my first graduate offer at a global market research firm because I cold-messaged their CEO on LinkedIn.
I had no mutual connection. I had no referral. I sent a short message, asked for 15 minutes of advice, shared my situation, and did not ask about openings or referrals. A month later, when a graduate role opened up, that CEO reached out to me directly.
Reach out before there is a job
Most candidates only contact people at a company when they see an open role. That is the worst possible time to message someone. You are now competing with everyone else who saw the same opening, and your message reads as transactional. You need something from them.
The opposite move is to reach out when there is no opening. Contact people in your target industry because you want to learn from them, not because you need something specific from them. You come across as proactive instead of transactional. That shift changes the whole dynamic.
I stumbled into this by accident. I had run out of active job postings to apply to, so I started messaging senior people at companies I liked whether they were hiring or not.
Why "ask for advice" beats "ask for a job"
When you message someone asking for a job or a referral, you put them in a difficult position. They barely know you. They have no reason to vouch for you. Most will not respond, and the ones who do will send some version of "sorry, we are not hiring right now."
When you ask for 15 minutes of advice, you flip the ask completely. Most senior professionals enjoy giving advice. It costs them almost nothing. It makes them feel useful. So they say yes at a much higher rate than any other kind of cold message.
What actually happened
I sent the CEO a short message on LinkedIn. Nothing complicated. I introduced myself as an international student trying to break into market research, mentioned something specific about their company's work I admired, and asked for 15 minutes to learn from him.
He said yes. I got on a 15-minute phone call. I asked for advice, shared my situation honestly, and did not ask about openings or referrals. I hung up thinking that was probably the end of it.
A month later, when the company opened a graduate marketing research role, the CEO reached out to me directly.
The line that carried the interview
I got through the screening call and the assessment centre partly because of one line I could drop: "I called your CEO."
That single sentence carried more weight than anything else I said in either round. It proved I was proactive. It positioned me differently from every other applicant who had come through the same funnel. Recruiters and hiring managers are trained to look for real evidence of proactivity, and very few candidates give them any. This one was mine.
If you want to work out who to message and what to say for your target industry, book a free 15-minute call.
How to start
Make a list of 10 to 20 companies you actually want to work at. Do not pick based on prestige. Pick based on genuine interest, because you will need to ask real questions on a call and the interest has to be real for that to land.
Find one senior person at each company. Send them a short message asking to learn from them. Do not ask for a job. Do not ask for a referral. Ask for their time to hear how they got where they are, and what they wish they had known when they were graduating.
Some will say yes. Most will not respond. That is fine. Volume covers for the ones who ignore you, and every conversation you land is with a person who now knows your name.
For more on how cold outreach fits into building a network from scratch as an international student, read: How to Network in Australia as an International Student (When You Know Nobody).
P.S. I did not end up taking the offer. Sorry to that CEO if you are reading this.