What to write in a LinkedIn connection note

A LinkedIn connection note gets accepted when the reader can tell, in about two seconds, who you are and why you picked them. That is the entire test. Nothing in the note has to be clever.

The box is small on purpose. The smallness is a favour, because it stops you writing a cover letter to a stranger.

A note that says nothing is worse than sending no note at all. It proves you had a chance to be specific and spent it on a greeting.

How the accept decision gets made

The person deciding is not reading your note. They are scanning it for cost.

The scan goes to your headline first and your note second, and the whole thing takes about as long as deleting a coupon email. One question is being answered: will accepting this create an obligation.

That reflex is fair, and it was earned. Enough people have accepted a friendly request and received a sales pitch ninety seconds later that everyone now reads these notes defensively.

So your note is competing with a suspicion rather than with other notes. Lower the suspicion and you are in.

The ones I decline have things in common:

• They open with a job title I do not have.
• They praise a post they clearly have not opened.
• They contain a link.
• They propose exploring synergies, which tells me precisely what arrives next.

What the note needs to say

A note that gets accepted names who you are, names the reason it is this person, and stops there.

• Say who you are in the words a reader would use, not your job title.
• Name the specific thing linking you: the talk, the thread, the client, the old team.
• Say what you want out of being connected, if it fits in one plain sentence.
• Leave out the calendar link and the pitch.

Here is a note I would accept without thinking about it. "Saw your post about killing the old checkout flow. I run support at a shop with the same mess and I want to see how it goes for you."

Three lines, no ask, and I now know something about the sender that I did not know a moment earlier. The bar is that low, which is part of why it stings that most notes miss it.

Why compliments are the weakest opening

Praise is the most common opening in connection notes and the least convincing, because it is the cheapest thing to type.

"Loved your post" could have been pasted into a thousand boxes before lunch, and the reader knows it. A specific reference cannot be mass produced. You had to actually read the thing.

The fix is mechanical. Replace the adjective with the detail. "Great piece on hiring" becomes "the part about not asking for a portfolio until the second round".

One quoted detail beats a paragraph of admiration, and it is shorter, which the small box will appreciate.

My own first drafts of these notes come out too eager. I write something warm and faintly desperate, reread it, and take out half of it. Catching that at the moment of typing is what changed things for me, and taking the Direct rewrite in Unvent takes out the half I would have taken out anyway.

Ask for nothing in the note

The note is the wrong place for your ask, because the reader has not agreed to anything yet.

Accepting is the first yes. Putting a second request in the same box forces them to answer both at once, and the safe answer to two questions from a stranger is no.

The asks that get smuggled in are rarely small. A coffee chat is an hour. "Pick your brain" is an hour with homework attached. A referral is somebody putting their name on you in front of people they work with.

One exception exists, and it is the honest version. If the ask is the reason you are writing, say so in the note. I would much rather read "I am applying for the role on your team and wanted to introduce myself" than a warm note that turns into a referral request four minutes after I accept.

The bigger ask belongs in the message you send later, and a cold message has a shape that works better than enthusiasm does.

Say the weak reason plainly

Say the weak reason plainly instead of dressing it up as a strong one.

Plenty of good connections start from something thin, and thin is fine as long as it is true:

• You do the same job somewhere else and want to see how they do it.
• You read something they wrote and want the next one.
• You worked with someone they worked with.
• You are starting out in the field and building a feed worth reading.

Try this. "I do the same job at a smaller company and I have been reading your posts for a while. No agenda, I would like to keep seeing them."

"No agenda" is a strong line when it is true, because it answers the only question the reader had. Never write it when it is false. The pitch that follows will cost you more than the connection was worth.

Some people will decline you anyway. That is a working system rather than a verdict on you.

Accepting is not permission to pitch

Wait. Accepting is not permission to pitch, and the fastest way to waste a new connection is to message inside the first minute.

The instant pitch is why the suspicion exists at all. Every person who does it makes the next hundred honest notes harder to get accepted, including yours.

If you have nothing to say, say nothing. A connection you never write to is still a connection, and it will be there on the day you need it.

When you do write, write because something happened. They posted a thing you can add to. You hit the problem they described. You finished the project you mentioned. A reason that exists outside your own goals is what makes the message readable, and the ending of that message does more work than the opening does.

My accept rule is embarrassingly simple. If the note tells me one thing I did not know before I opened it, I accept. Most notes fail that, and they fail it while being perfectly polite.