Networking

Talk to people before you need them. Ask an alumnus for 20 minutes about their work, not for a job. Ask for a referral only once that person knows what you built, and send the job ID with the request. Go to the fair with one project to show. These three habits put your resume in front of a person instead of a filter.

Why a referral is worth the effort

At one large US firm, economists at the New York Fed matched applications to outcomes. Referred people were 6 percent of the applicants, 21 percent of the interviewees, 27 percent of the offer recipients, and 29 percent of the hires (opens in a new tab). The referral funnel figure on this page shows the four numbers.

Share of each stage that came in by referral

Four bars showing the share of people at each hiring stage who were referred, at one large firm. Applicants, 6 percent. Interviewed, 21 percent. Got an offer, 27 percent. Hired, 29 percent.

1. Applicants6%
2. Interviewed21%
3. Got an offer27%
4. Hired29%

Referred people were 6 percent of applicants and 29 percent of hires at one large US firm. Source: the New York Fed staff report by Brown, Setren, and Topa (opens in a new tab).

The pattern holds across hiring platforms. Lever's 2016 benchmarks put the odds of a hire at one in 16 for a referred candidate and one in 152 for someone who applied through the career site (opens in a new tab). Ashby's report on 38 million applications from 2021 to 2024 (opens in a new tab) found that referrals fell from 2 percent of applications in early 2021 to under 1 percent three years later, while the offer rate for people who applied on their own dropped from 7 in 1,000 to 2 in 1,000. Fewer people come in by referral now, so one counts for more.

An IEEE Spectrum careers column says a referral from a trusted connection lifts you above a pile of AI-filled applications (opens in a new tab).

The section on getting a referral first on the getting hired page has the list of people to ask and the message to send.

A referred resume goes to a recruiter, and a cold one goes into the pile, even when the two candidates did the same work.

The informational interview

An informational interview is a short conversation about someone's work. Sacramento State's tip sheet calls it an informal conversation usually lasting 20 to 30 minutes (opens in a new tab), and says to mention how you got the person's name and to make clear you want information, not a job. Georgia Tech's handout says the same thing in one line (opens in a new tab): an informational interview is never used to ask for a job.

A request that gets a yes has five parts:

1. How you found them. A shared class, team, school, or a mutual contact.
2. One line on who you are and what you build.
3. A specific ask: 20 minutes, by phone or video, in the next two weeks.
4. The words "advice" or "information", and nothing about a job.
5. A subject line that says what the message is, not "Introduction".

Copy this and fill in the brackets.

Subject: [School] EE student, 20 minutes on test engineering at [Company]?

Hi [Name],

I found you through the [School] alumni page. I am a fourth-year electrical engineering student, and I am building a [one-line project].

Could I ask you 20 minutes of questions about test engineering at [Company], sometime in the next two weeks? I want to understand the work, not ask for a job.

Thanks either way.

Alex Doe

Prepare five questions about the work. Ask what a normal week looks like, what the team wishes new hires knew, and what they would build if they were a student now. Write down one thing to follow up on. The NIH career office says to send a thank-you note promptly (opens in a new tab). Send it the same day, and no later than the 24 hours MIT's career office gives (opens in a new tab).

For what to ask once the conversation starts, MIT's career office lists suggested questions for informational interviews (opens in a new tab).

Asking for the referral

Ask after the conversation, not in it, and only once the person has seen your work. Give them the job title, the job ID, the link, and your resume, and give them an easy way to say no. The section on getting a referral first on the getting hired page has the script.

Do not open with a referral request. An engineering manager on Blind wrote that introducing yourself, describing your situation, and thanking the person sets you far apart from the people who only write "can I have one" (opens in a new tab). What people say they act on is a specific role, a job ID, and a fit they can see, or a coffee chat first.

A referrer puts their own name next to yours. Make it easy for them. Say how you know each other, name the job and paste the ID, attach the resume, and give them a way to say no.

Most requests do not get a referral. A study of referral requests posted on Blind in 2024 found that 54 percent got no referral offer, and 31 percent got no comments at all (opens in a new tab). Send one follow-up after a week, then move to the next person.

Career fairs

In NACE's 2024 student survey, more than half of students had attended a career fair in the past 12 months. Of those, more than 45 percent got an interview offer after the fair, and nearly one quarter got a job offer (opens in a new tab). Employers agree. In NACE's 2025 internship report, more than two thirds of employers rated in-person fairs and on-campus recruiting effective for 2023–24 (opens in a new tab).

The odds at one booth are lower than those numbers sound. An engineering manager in the power industry wrote that they took in around 75 resumes for one internship (opens in a new tab). The students who got picked had a conversation the rep remembered. The cold outreach and career fairs section on the getting hired page has the four-line card to write before you go.

The big society conventions are career fairs too. SWE's WE25 fair had hundreds of organizations on the floor (opens in a new tab), and the Department of Energy expected 400-plus career fair exhibitors at NSBE's 2025 convention (opens in a new tab). The professional societies page covers which ones to join.

One more thing the numbers miss. The recruiter at the booth is paid to evaluate you, and the conversation is the interview. Have the one build ready, say what you measured, and ask the rep what their team is hiring for this year.

LinkedIn

Use LinkedIn to find people, not to apply. Open your school's page and use the alumni tab. Santa Clara's career center explains the filters (opens in a new tab): where alumni work, what they do, and what they studied. Search for the company, then for your major.

Free accounts get three personalized connection notes a month, each up to 200 characters (opens in a new tab), so spend them on alumni and second-degree contacts, and put the informational interview ask in the note. The portfolio page covers the profile itself, and its section on posting the work as you go covers the posts.

MIT's career office has a five-step guide to the profile (opens in a new tab), and Georgia Tech's networking and virtual identity guide covers outreach messages and what to do when nobody answers (opens in a new tab).

Post what you are building. A photo of the bench and one sentence on the result is enough, and it does two things at once. The alumni you message can see the work before they answer, and a recruiter who searches for your tools finds proof instead of a headline. It never hurts to show off a little.