How New Grads Network Into a First Job
Every posting wants experience you do not have yet. The fastest way in is not another application, it is a 15-minute talk with someone who already shares your school or an old job.
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 sending more applications keeps failing
A new grad with no experience loses the resume screen before a human reads it. Software ranks you against people who already did the job, so more applications just mean more silent rejections.
Networking wins because a referral changes who reads you and how. An employee who passes your name along gets you a real look, and the person you spoke with wants you to do well because you spent time with them.
Four moves that get a new grad a reply
The message is not the hard part once you get these four things right. Each one lowers the effort it takes someone to say yes.
- Lead with what you share. Open with the school, club, or old job you have in common, not with your job hunt. It answers the why-should-I-reply question in the first line.
- Ask for advice, not a job. Request 15 minutes to learn how their team works. People who cannot hire you will still happily explain what they do all day.
- Make helping cost 30 seconds. Propose two specific times and one clear question. Never send a wall of text that forces them to schedule your life for you.
- Follow up once, then move on. A single reminder a week later meaningfully lifts replies. Silence after that is a no, and there are plenty more people to reach.
Find the people who already share something with you
The hard part is not the message, it is building the list. Guessing who at a company went to your school means scrolling LinkedIn for an hour and still missing most of them.
This is the finding-and-ranking part FindWarmIntros does for you: give it a target company and your school or past employers, and it surfaces the real people inside who share one of those, ranked by how close the tie is, with a warm intro drafted. You still send the note and show up to the chat, but you skip the hour of guessing who to write.
Turn one conversation into a referral
Near the end of a good chat, ask one thing: given where I am, who else on your team should I talk to. A warm handoff to a second person beats any job link and keeps the chain going.
When a role finally opens, message the people you already spoke with before you apply. A two-line note reminding them of your talk turns a stranger in the applicant pile into a name someone recognizes.