As a hiring manager, if you were advertising for a job and an applicant found your email address online and sent you a personal email. What would you think? Good idea or not?

30 comments

1. Personally, it’s unlikely I would even read it.

2. Terrible idea. I would view this as breaking the work/personal life barrier.

   I’ve had this happen for email and non-LinkedIn social media and it always shows me a lack of respect for my personal life. It’s creepy and demonstrates poor professional judgement. Would you show up at their home?

   Immediate rejection.

   **EDIT:** My bad, I didn’t have my glasses on and was reading on my phone in bed first thing in the morning. I totally missed the “company” part. That being said, I would still avoid this. There are appropriate ways to apply for a position and to me this would still come off as unprofessional.

3. Personally, it would put you in my disqualified pile. Just follow the hiring process.

   Your time is better spent perfecting your resume and cover letter.

4. This is what LinkedIn is for. Send a message on LinkedIn.

5. As a hiring manager myself, I always favor looking at someones resume if they did the research to find my email address, and reach out.

   In a world of thousands of resumes turned in via LinkedIn for every job out there, this is a simple strategy that can automatically set you apart from the other candidates (in the beginning).

   If it’s my choice to have my personal email address on my LinkedIn profile, then it’s on me for making it available.

   OP- if someone flips out at you for doing your due diligence, showing off your resourcefulness and tenacity, etc. and complains about you reaching out to them outside of the actual job posting, it’s not a place you want to work at!

6. Hard no. Your desire for a job doesn’t outweigh the implicit boundary violations. If you make yourself stand out by being the least respectful and most entitled, I will expect that from you as a colleague and do my best to prevent it. That means tossing your application.

7. Bad idea. I would likely delete the email.

   “Clever trick” would be to have connections to help get an interview or a job.

8. Somewhat related, but I was briefly a manager that dealt with hiring. Some guy managed to fast talk an employee into getting my personal cell and called that to push for an interview in addition to my work phone. He didn’t really qualify in the first place but that definitely struck him out

9. My work email? Yes, i’d be more likely to pay attention to that person. Half the applications I get are morons and don’t even bother to craft a cover letter or resume specific to the job they are applying for.

   I even had a job that specified sending an email with resume and listed my work email, and only about 10% of candidates did

10. No. I’ve had people do that and hired the folks who did that. I sorely regret it. Always over-eager and underproductive. Very needy.

11. Nah, don’t do that but *DO* reach out to people on LinkedIn as its a social platform meant for connection and the appropriate place to do so.

    I’m always surprised how little people use LinkedIn to find work at companies they want to work for. Find people in the department you want to work in or HR. Send them your resume with a flattering message about what you love about the company and why you want to work for them and why you would be a good fit. Do this for a bunch of different companies.

    You will be ignored sometimes, blocked other times but there will be some people who recognize the effort and will put you in contact with the right people.

12. Better to reach out to someone within the company you have any tenuous connection to who might be willing to get a coffee where you can ask about the corporate culture or the role itself if they might know about it. Someone who you may know as a connection of a mutual friend, or if they’re an alumnus of the same school etc.

    I’ve done this a few times as I’m on the job hunt myself currently.

13. Someone did this to me on linkedin when we were advertising positions, although I’m not the hiring manager, or even high up for that matter. She sent messages to a few people in our group and tried to tug on our emotions by talking about getting a job near her husband and whatnot. I ignored it for a while, then mentioned it to my boss and he said just ignore it, she’s been spamming multiple people in the department, or if I really wanted to direct her to the application link. I ignored it.

    It was not viewed favorably. It goes from being a go-getter to being inconsiderate, and personality issues like that a huge red flag for hiring. Honestly, most of work is being liked, as weird as that might sound. I work with all range of extremely (overly) qualified to embarassingly bad people – as long as you’re pleasant and don’t make egregious mistakes in work, you’re probably going to be fine. That’s a little bit of a tangent, but basically just highlighting the importance of personality. If someone sees you as being someone that they can’t work with because you spammed their e-mail that’s so much worse than sending your resume in and being in the rejection pile based on qualifications because that will mark you as probably unhireable as long as the people you spammed work there.

14. Depends, how did you find the email address for this person? Is it a work email? Did they list the email on the job listing? What were the instructions on the job opening?

15. For me bad idea if the email isn’t listed in the posting.

16. Not hiring. Sounds like the type of person that goes up the chain of supervisors until one agrees with them. And having to deal with that in the past I’ll easily past ppl that do that.

17. This is the workplace version of “sliding into her DMs” and I doubt it would be taken well.

18. Absolutely nope. Stalking bad.

19. I don’t think so.

    Far better to find their LinkedIn and view their Page. It’ll notify them that you did, and they can view yours, giving you an in.

20. I’ve done LinkedIn stalking before. I would apply and find the recruiter and hiring manager for that role and try to connect their. It’s never worked but I don’t think there’s shame in being professionally persistent if it’s a job you truly want.

21. Bad idea. They’d feel unsafe

22. Just follow whatever their hiring process is and submit a cover letter and resume. If I was a hiring manager and the job posting said to email an HR email or someone specific I would disqualify it as you cannot follow basic instructions.

23. I’ve hired hundreds if not thousands of people and as long as it’s to my work email, respectful and professional then I’d be fine with it. But do not hound them if they don’t reply. Go with one and done or maybe one follow up but prioritizing respectful, professional and realizing they may not reply. If they reply and say no or redirect you etc please accept snd respect their guidance and thank them for their response. Feel free to DM me if you want specific feedback in your note.

24. If I’m the hiring manager – I signed up for it and I should expect it

    If I’m someone in the team – annoying as fuck.

    Edit: MY PERSONAL EMAIL? no way. Huge overstep.

    I’d throw away the resume because this person clearly has no boundaries

25. Definitely don’t email them personally. But if you can find their direct personal mail, that’s different. But I wouldn’t try “selling” your profile to them, I’d be asking for a quick call to talk about the position or something similar.

26. Tbh if I received that email I’d have to forward it to our recruitment team anyway so you don’t really gain anything coming to me.

    A better option would be getting to talk to the recruiter directly and explaining your case.

27. Personal company email, ok. Personal personal email, definitely no.

28. Honestly, I’d just reply asking them to please submit their resume to the standard intake site, then delete the email and forget about it. I’ve got too many resumes to go through in Lever to worry about going through them somewhere else.

29. Recruiter here: absolutely, 100% do this for anyone who would be your supervisor. Especially if it’s a role that requires either research or sales.

    Just advise them that you applied for the role, you’re really excited about it, and ask a decently thought out question. If they answer, your odds of an interview go way up. If they don’t answer, your odds probably don’t change much. If they’re offended by it, they’re too overworked to respond to emails at best, or at worst ridiculous snowflakes who would also be a terrible person to work for anyway.

30. No. Fuck no. Unless the ad specifically says contact person x for more information don’t do it.