1/ The cold email

the second most powerful tool for landing a job behind “my dad is the CEO.”

I’m a big fan of the cold email for one reason in particular

it helped me land my current job at @MorningBrew

a thread

2/ Below I’ll be highlighting some of the keys to a good cold email:

How to break the ice
How to establish credibility
How to frame your ask
How to stick the landing
3/ To start, here is the full email

Let's get into it
4/ BREAK THE ICE

show that you value what they value

when I emailed @austin_rief about getting a job with the Brew, I led with a really niche David Dobrik reference

David is his dude

ice=broken
5/ ESTABLISH CREDIBILITY

this is where amateur cold emailers often make the biggest mistake. They are afraid to self promote and I feel that

so I took an alternate approach

i mentioned one of Morning Brew’s competitors, Axios
6/ by casually name-dropping Axios, I immediately showed that I must have something of value to add

or else Axios wouldn’t be talking to me
7/ other ways to build credibility

1. interact with them on a social platform (in a positive way) then mention the interaction

2. provide some insightful commentary on a piece of content they’ve created

3. reference a mutual acquaintance
8/ other ways to build credibility cont.

4. show off something you’ve built, not something you accomplished

(You built your own newsletter whereas graduating from a certain college is something you accomplished)
9/ FRAMING THE ASK

you have to reach out with a purpose

I didn’t ask for a job (which is what I really wanted)

I offered them a chance to see my vision for a new content vertical

now the power dynamics have changed
10/ I’m not requesting an interview

or for Alex and Austin to look at my application

only to consider a potentially valuable Brew product

plus its unique
11/ I doubt many people have pitched them on a new newsletter...

then actually wrote a new newsletter

(not sure if this pic will work put here's a loooooooong JPEG image of the Sports Brew I wrote)
12/ Brew managing editor @Neal_Freyman agrees

“There are a zillion writers who would love the position but not many would take the time to unsolicitedly write out an entire newsletter. That's what made your email stand out.”
13/ STICKING THE LANDING

you’ve done the dirty work

all that’s left is to go ahead and ask for what you want

always finish the email with a request
14/ instead of a less direct “Let me know what you think,” or “Thank you for your consideration”

establish a sense of urgency and give your chain of communication an actionable next step
15/ Telling @BUSlNESSBARISTA and @austin_rief that I’ll get on the next bus shows that I mean business...

and a few emails later

I actually did get on that bus

did get an interview

and the rest is history

More from All

You May Also Like

A brief analysis and comparison of the CSS for Twitter's PWA vs Twitter's legacy desktop website. The difference is dramatic and I'll touch on some reasons why.

Legacy site *downloads* ~630 KB CSS per theme and writing direction.

6,769 rules
9,252 selectors
16.7k declarations
3,370 unique declarations
44 media queries
36 unique colors
50 unique background colors
46 unique font sizes
39 unique z-indices

https://t.co/qyl4Bt1i5x


PWA *incrementally generates* ~30 KB CSS that handles all themes and writing directions.

735 rules
740 selectors
757 declarations
730 unique declarations
0 media queries
11 unique colors
32 unique background colors
15 unique font sizes
7 unique z-indices

https://t.co/w7oNG5KUkJ


The legacy site's CSS is what happens when hundreds of people directly write CSS over many years. Specificity wars, redundancy, a house of cards that can't be fixed. The result is extremely inefficient and error-prone styling that punishes users and developers.

The PWA's CSS is generated on-demand by a JS framework that manages styles and outputs "atomic CSS". The framework can enforce strict constraints and perform optimisations, which is why the CSS is so much smaller and safer. Style conflicts and unbounded CSS growth are avoided.