How to ask for a referral: advice from an engineering manager

Every time I open Blind I see lots of people asking for referrals, and I almost always oblige by encouraging them to DM me. However, people don’t seem to know how to properly ask for help, and 9 out of 10 times I end up giving up and ignoring them. I wrote this helpful little guide so you can avoid falling through the cracks. First off, be polite and respectful. Remember that a referral is someone personally vouching for you and your skills, and that is a lot to ask for from someone that you’ve never actually worked with. If you treat a DM as “we are on blind together therefore you’re going to help me,“ you are being presumptuous and the recipient is well within their rights to ignore you. Introduce yourself, give a brief description of your situation, explain what you hope to achieve, and profusely thank the recipient for any help they might choose to give. Do not just message people and say “Hey I heard you’re giving out referrals, can I have one.” It doesn’t sound like a lot, but you’d be surprised how far apart it sets you from people asking for help on this platform. Second, provide a link to your resume IN YOUR INTRO MESSAGE. Don’t ask for permission to share your resume. Don’t ask how the recipient would like to receive the resume. For the love of God don’t ask for their email or LinkedIn. Have your resume in a publicly available place like Google Drive or Dropbox, and share a link to it at the end of your message. Anyone sharing an offer for referrals is going to be bombarded with dozens of messages, if they have to go back-and-forth to drag a resume out of you, they’re going to forget about you and help someone else. Finally, don’t wait until you receive a response to apply for a job on the company website. All referral forms I’ve seen have a drop-down that says something to the effect of “how long have you worked with this person?” If the response is “this person is a stranger,” you won’t get a ton of benefit from the referral. You might not believe it, but at most companies recruiters and sourcers really do look at every resume. It does not hurt your chances to apply online, in fact at many organizations it improves your chances because it makes it easier for the person making the referral to direct your resume to the appropriate recruiter through the applicant tracking system. Times are tough, but thankfully there are a lot of people out there willing to make them easier. Use these tips to help them help you, ignore these tips to spend the rest of your career making five figures. P.S.: If you are a software engineer with any background in statistics or mathematics feel free to DM me for a referral to Reddit. We are a fully remote team, hiring in the US, Canada, and Europe.