Reconnect With an Old Coworker for a Warm Intro
You worked next to this person years ago, they are now inside the company you want, and reaching out cold-ish feels awkward. Here is how to reopen the door honestly and make saying yes take 30 seconds.
Find your former coworkers →Free · No sign-up · See results in ~10 seconds
A plain LinkedIn search buries the people who would actually help you.
It ranks by prominence, so the most-followed, most-messaged names sit on top. FindWarmIntros surfaces the coworkers who share your school or a past employer - the people most likely to reply - and hands you a ready-to-send intro.
✍️ 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 the gap actually helps you
A years-old coworker connection is stronger than any cold contact, because you already passed the trust test once: you shipped work side by side. That does not expire. The awkwardness you feel is about the silence since, not about whether they remember you.
So do not apologize your way in or pretend you stayed in touch. Name the gap plainly, anchor to something concrete you both remember, and let the shared past do the work. A person who once relied on you at a deadline will read your name and feel goodwill before they read your request.
How to reopen the door in two beats
Split the reconnect from the ask. Cramming both into one message reads as purely transactional and is the fastest way to get left on read.
- Beat one, the reconnect. Two or three sentences: a specific shared memory (the project, the manager, the office), one honest line that it has been years, and a genuine question about how they are finding the new company. No ask yet.
- Beat two, the ask. After they reply, name the exact role or team and ask directly: would you be open to forwarding me to the hiring manager? Direct beats hinting.
- The 30-second package. Attach a two-line blurb they can paste verbatim, plus your resume link, so the intro costs them a single forward, not a writing task.
- The clean exit. End with a real out: totally fine if the timing is bad or you are not close to that team. This makes yes feel safe, not obligated.
Find the coworkers you forgot you had
The hard part is usually memory, not messaging. You cannot ask a former colleague you no longer remember works there, and scrolling a company page person by person is slow and misses people who changed titles or names.
FindWarmIntros does the finding and ranking part for you: it scans a target company for people you share a past employer or school with, then surfaces the ones most likely to actually help, so you spend your energy on the message instead of the search. It is a free way to turn a foggy hunch that someone from an old job is now there into a real, named list.