How to Network Into a Job in a New Country
Applying cold from abroad gets you filtered out over visas and time zones before a human reads your resume. The fix is to arrive with warm introductions already in motion.
Find Your Warm Intros →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:
Why cold applying from abroad rarely works
Recruiters reading a stack of resumes see a foreign phone number and address and assume relocation cost, visa paperwork, and a notice period they cannot predict. Even when you are qualified, you are the risky pick, so you get passed over quietly.
A warm introduction removes that doubt. When someone inside vouches for you, the hiring manager reads your resume already believing you are worth the logistics. Your job before you move is to build those inside voices, not to polish another application into the void.
Where your warm paths actually come from
You have more connections in the new country than you think. The trick is to look for shared context, not just people you already know, because a stranger who shares your school or old employer will still take your call.
- University alumni. Your school almost certainly has graduates living and working in your destination city. Shared alma mater is one of the strongest reasons a busy person will reply to someone they have never met.
- Former colleagues and their moves. Someone from a past job has likely already relocated to where you are going. They know the local market, the visa reality, and often the hiring managers.
- Company alumni networks. People who once worked at your current or past employer now sit inside target companies abroad. That shared history is a real door opener, even years later.
- Diaspora and hobby communities. Sports clubs, faith groups, and hometown associations in the new city are full of people who remember arriving themselves and will happily help.
How FindWarmIntros finds the people worth messaging
The slow part of all this is figuring out which strangers at a target company actually share something real with you. Doing it by hand means scrolling profiles for hours and guessing.
FindWarmIntros does the finding-and-ranking part for you. You name a company you want to work at, and it surfaces the real people there you share a school or past employer with, ranks them by how strong that overlap is, and drafts a short message that leads with what you have in common. You still send it yourself and still do the relationship work, but you skip the hours of hunting and start every note from a genuine shared thread.
What to actually say in the first message
Lead with the thing you share, never with the ask. Open with the school, the old employer, or the city you are both from, then make helping you cost about 30 seconds.
Ask for their read on the company and the local market, not for a job. A 15-minute call is a small yes. Once they like you and understand your situation, referrals and introductions tend to follow on their own, because now a real person wants you to land.