How to Find Someone Who Can Refer You for a Job
The referral advice everyone gives you assumes you already know who to ask. Here is how to actually find that person — ranked by who is most likely to say yes.
Find people who can refer you →Free · No sign-up · See results in ~10 seconds
✍️ Ready-to-send intro“Hi — we both studied at [your school]. I’d love to hear about your path to a company you are targeting before I apply…”
… plus everyone else in your network who can put in a good word.
See who can refer you in — pick your target company:
Rank your options by shared signal
The single best predictor of whether someone refers you is how much you genuinely share with them. Work down this list in order:
- Shared school AND a past employer → highest hit rate. Lead with both.
- Shared school (alumni) → strong; alumni expect these asks and usually help.
- Ex-colleague who moved there → strong; you already have a relationship to reopen.
- Total stranger, same company → lowest; treat it like the cold DM it is, and only after the warmer options are exhausted.
Where to actually find these people
- The LinkedIn alumni tool. Go to your school's LinkedIn page → "Alumni" → filter "Where they work" by the company. This is the single highest-yield move and most people never use it.
- Your school's alumni directory or Handshake. Often lists people who are not easy to find on LinkedIn and who opted in to being contacted.
- Your own past employers' alumni. Scroll former coworkers who changed jobs — a past overlap, even a short one, is a real warm tie.
Then keep the first message short and specific
Once you have the person, the message matters. A generic "please refer me" gets ignored; "we both did [X], I am exploring [Y], mind if I ask about your path?" gets replies. Reference the shared thing in the first line, be specific about the role, and make it easy to help.
Do not ask for the referral in message one. Ask to connect and learn; let the referral follow once there is a thread. The shared signal opens the door — a specific, low-effort ask walks through it.
Do the finding automatically
The manual LinkedIn-alumni search works, but it is slow to do across several target companies. FindWarmIntros does the finding and ranking part for you: enter a company and your background (schools, past employers) and it returns the real current employees you share a signal with — already ranked strongest-first — each with a ready-to-send intro. Free, no signup.