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Comment on Ask HN: Do you cold-contact peers when considering working at a company?

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I haven't done exactly this but I have "cold" contacted people who I had some sort of connection with - same college, common friends, etc.

I usually mention this in my e-mail saying something like "I'm contacting you because we both did X so I thought it might be alright to bother you."

Thanks, that makes sense. But if you don't know anyone, why not find some developer and their email address (a bit of Google-Fu will do it) and contact them?

To me, it seems polite enough.

Wouldn't _you_ answer such an email if it was polite and seemed to come from a serious developer?

Of course I would -- it's hard to find people. Some companies give referral bonuses to incent their employees to recruit on their behalf. If the idea is to get "inside information", I think it will fail (or at least, hope it will). Not treating company information as secret (especially to strangers) is a sign of a dysfunctional organization.

If it's just "feel" that you are looking for -- then I think you'll get that.

Yes, it's just feel. A peppy intelligent response will give me a more positive feel than no response or a cold, guarded response.

That is far from a good indicator, but it is a start.

And if the communication goes well, I can schedule a call or continue the email correspondence.

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