How to do job change outreach on LinkedIn

01 Why a job change is a good reason to reach out

Most cold messages fail because there is no reason for them to arrive now. A new role gives you that reason. The person is meeting new people, learning what is broken and deciding what to keep.

A LinkedIn account executive put it plainly on LinkedIn's sales blog: "Typically when a new executive joins an org, they have plans to drive change internally" ¹. The same post adds a fair warning: "Just because someone switched jobs, doesn't mean they're ready for a sales convo" ¹. A job change opens a door. It does not book the meeting.

There is a second kind of job change worth more than the first. When someone who already bought from you, or liked working with you, moves to a new company, they arrive knowing you. That is the warmest outreach you will ever send.

02 How to find people who changed jobs

You can do this by hand with LinkedIn search and a little discipline. The method is the same whatever you use.

• Start with your buyer profile. Titles, seniority, company size, industry and region. A job change outside your market is just noise.
• Add a recently changed jobs filter. LinkedIn's sales blog lists Changed jobs among the filters a seller can use on a saved search ¹.
• Look for past customers who moved. The same post describes searching by past company to find former customers at new employers ¹.
• Check the person, not only the trigger. Read their profile and the new company's page. Is this a role that owns the problem you solve?
• Save the search and come back weekly. New people move every week. A list from last month is mostly people you are already late for.

03 What to say to someone in a new role

The first message is about them. Congratulate them in one line, then ask a real question about the first months in the job. Leave your product out of the first note.

Keep it short. A new leader gets many messages in the first weeks, and a long pitch reads like one more vendor. For example, congratulate them on the new role at the company by name, then ask what they plan to look at first.

If they accept or reply, the follow-up can connect what they said to a problem you help with. If they do not, one or two light follow-ups spaced a few days apart are enough. Stop when they answer, and stop when they say no.

• Mention the new role and the company by name
• Ask about their plans, not about your demo
• One idea per message, no attachment, no calendar link in the first note
• For a former customer, remind them how you worked together and ask how the new team does it

04 What goes wrong with job change outreach

The signal is strong, so many sellers use it. A new leader may get a dozen near identical congratulations from vendors in the same week. The note that stands out shows you read their profile and know their market.

Timing matters in both directions. Write on the first day and they have not even met their team. Wait three months and the decisions may already be made. The weekly search is what keeps you in the right window.

Capacity is the other limit. One LinkedIn account sends about 100 connection requests per week, as the weekly invite limit page explains. If your market has more new leaders each week than that, you need to choose the best fits, add senders, or reach some by InMail or email.

05 Ways to run it every week

The method is simple. Keeping it going is the hard part. These are the realistic ways, with what is good and bad about each.

• By hand from your own account. Free apart from your time, and every message is yours. It lasts as long as your habit does, and one account caps the volume.
• A teammate or SDR owns it. Someone runs the search and the messages each week. It costs a salary and needs training on your market.
• More senders in rotation. Teammates' profiles add weekly capacity. Someone has to keep the senders and the replies in order. See multiple senders.
• An agency. A person outside your team runs it. Ask how they find the signal and who reads each message. See LinkedIn lead generation agencies.
• Having it run for you as part of your outreach. A done-for-you service watches for the signal and writes to the people it finds, at a monthly volume you choose.

06 What LinkedNav does with job changes

LinkedNav is a done-for-you LinkedIn outreach service. You buy a monthly prospect volume, and the team builds the list, writes the sequences, runs the outreach and handles the replies. Job changes are one of the signals the team uses to decide who goes on that list.

LinkedNav's intent signal agent runs a search for people in your buyer profile who recently moved jobs, beside other signals such as people who just posted, companies that are hiring, companies with new leadership and companies with new funding. Each person it finds can be scored against your buyer profile, with a short reason for the score, and only those above the bar move into a list or a campaign.

The team writes the messages to fit the signal, so a person in a new role hears about the new role. Follow-ups stop when the prospect writes back. Where replies are drafted by AI, a person can read and approve each one before it goes out. More on the signals is on the buying signals page.

07 Who this fits, and who it does not

It fits a team that knows who it sells to, wants a steady flow of new conversations each month, and does not have the hours to run the search and the messages every week.

It does not fit everyone. If your market is a few dozen named accounts, watch them yourself and write each note by hand. If you only need a handful of meetings a quarter, your own account and a weekly habit may be enough. To see what the team would run for your market, book a demo, and the cost is on the pricing page.

FAQ Frequently asked questions