🤾🏻 Make small bets

Chris Rock is one of my favorite comedians of all time. I discovered him when a friend had Saturday Night Live - The Best of Chris Rock playing on his TV many years ago and have followed his career since. I’ve seen all his HBO specials. I started Season 4 of Fargo because of him. I splurged to see him front-row at his Tamborine special. Suffice it to say; I love Chris Rock.

Have you ever wondered how he always has excellent material? Peter Sims did some research on this in his book, Little Bets, where he says:

…all of them have achieved breakthrough results by methodically taking small, experimental steps in order to discover and develop new ideas. Rather than believing they have to start with a big idea or plan a whole project out in advance…they make a series of little bets about what might be a good direction, learning from lots of little failures and from small but highly significant wins that allow them to happen upon unexpected avenues and arrive at extraordinary outcomes.

Small, experimental steps. Series of little bets. There are many ways we can implement this powerful idea to get “extraordinary outcomes” in our Salesforce career.

Today, I will highlight how I leverage LinkedIn messages from recruiters as a testing ground for how I engage with recruiters at companies I want to work for.

But DA, aren’t you wasting your time? I don’t think so, and here’s why:

• You can learn salary ranges at other companies to see what the market is paying.
• Like Chris Rock, you can test out your “material” with tons of recruiters so you can be prepared to engage with recruiters at companies you want to work for.
• You’ll sometimes meet recruiters who you enjoy working with and build a personal connection that will serve you well into your future.

💡Important: I will not ask for the compensation range from recruiters at companies I want to work for because I have already done my research and know that compensation will not be an issue.

Test out your material on LinkedIn recruiters

Pre-work

This pre-work is necessary as it notifies recruiters you’re in the market and are open to hearing their pitches.

1. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date. If you’re interested in hearing my recommendations on how to make a solid LinkedIn profile, let me know.
2. Set your profile as Open to work and check I'm open to remote work.
3. Choose who sees you’re open: Recruiters only
4. Job Titles: Add job titles you are interested in pursuing (examples: Salesforce Administrator, Salesforce Business Analyst, Salesforce Developer, CRM Manager)
5. Job Locations: San Francisco, LA, Austin, NYC
6. Job Types: Contract, Full-time, Remote

Practice your material

After you’ve completed your pre-work, you will start seeing more LinkedIn messages like this:

Here, you see seven recruiters reaching out over two days. Over time, this will be the norm, so if it becomes too much, tweak some of the settings that I laid out in the pre-work section.

Types of recruiter InMails

You will generally see four types of recruiter InMails:

• “Ignore me” Ian: they didn’t put in the effort to grab your attention. Why should you return the favor?
• “Do my job” Dylan: you can either choose to ignore this message or engage with the recruiter.
• “Tight-lipped” Travis: cagey with information so you’ll get on the phone with them
• “Straight shooter” Sandy: straight to the point (these are the best people to work with)

🤡 "Ignore me" Ian

Ignore messages from these recruiters if they:

• have noticeable grammatical errors
• forgot to replace your name with the message template name
• are reaching out for a job that has absolutely nothing to do with your current role or job trajectory

😂 “Do my job” Dylan

I just met you! Why would I refer someone I know to you?

Remote {job title} - interested?{Company} is looking for a {job title} to come join us. If you have experience working with {these skillsets} - let’s connect! Even if you’re not in the market, if you know someone would work well with us, send them to me and let’s connect. Here is the link to the role: {url to job posting}

🤔 Tight-lipped Travis

They’ll be vague about the company, role, and salary range for the position. I still think you should engage with them because you’ll practice extracting information from someone apprehensive to initially share it.

💡 Learning the above skill will serve you well when it comes to salary negotiations once you get an offer. For example, getting answers to questions on a company’s valuation (to calculate RSU/options value) the salary range/job description of the position above the one you’re offered (to potentially get a title bump).

You’ll find these messages coming from recruiters at staffing firms. Leadership at these firms will sometimes measure recruiters by the number of calls they have with candidates. They’re incentivized to be vague enough to get your attention and get you on a phone call.

Here’s an example of a message you’ll typically get:

Title: {job title}I’m a recruiter with {staffing firm} looking for a {job title} for some of my clients. These companies work with great technologies, have smart people working for them, and have competitive pay.When is the best time to talk on the phone?

✅ Straight shooters

Straight shooters will tell you the company, link you the job description, share some company highlights, and send you a link to schedule some time to chat with them.

Response scripts

I will outline a few response scripts you can use to any of the recruiter InMail messages:

1. Ask for the compensation range: The recruiter will either dodge the question or respond with the range.
2. Ask for more information: The recruiter will either push for a call or provide you the job description via email/LinkedIn.
3. Say it’s not a good fit: You either be ghosted or hear back from them. Either way, they probably stored you in their system.

💃🏼The compensation dance script

If I’m optimizing for finding out the salary ranges for similar Salesforce positions, I’ll ask the compensation range question. It’s simple:

You: Thanks for your message. Out of curiosity, what is the compensation range for this position?

1. They dodge the question

If they dodge the question, play hardball and ask the question again. 75% of the time, the recruiter will relent and give you a range. The other 25% is left for you to have fun with 😄

2. They respond with the range

R: It could be anywhere from $XXXk - $YYYk for this position. The range could be higher or lower depending on your experience and feedback from the interview.

If the range is too low

You: Unfortunately, that range is way too low, given my experience. I’m currently targeting your next level positions in my job search. I would love to stay connected if you’re hiring for a position like this in the future.

If they have other positions available

R: We are currently hiring for that position! The salary range is between $XXX,XXX and $YYY,YYY. Does that work for you?

Keep in mind recruiters will sometimes give a sub-range of the company’s actual range for the position. With some additional finessing, you could get the true range.

The recruiter might want to grab your current salary to check with their client/hiring manager to see if they can pay you just enough to get you to jump ship (but not a penny more).

R: Ok. Would you mind sharing your salary expectations? I could check back with the team.

Test their 💰 limits

This is where we make another bet. Why not throw out an aspirational salary range here? What’s the worst that could happen?

You: I’m not entertaining anything less than {aspirational number here}.

You’ll be shocked at their responses. Sometimes, they’ll laugh and say it’s not doable. You might never get a response back. But sometimes, you will get recruiters who say, “We can make that work.”

If the range works for you

Even if the range is the most amount of money you’ve heard in your life, you want to play it cool, kind of like you’ve been there before.

You: I think that’s something we can work with. What are the next steps?

ℹ️ Ask for more information script

‍You: Thanks for your message. Before we talk on the phone, what’s the company you’re working with, and can you send the job description over?

R: Let’s talk on the phone to discuss that. When can you talk?

You: I don’t want to waste anyone’s time here. If you send it over and we’re a good fit, I’ll gladly give you my number and we can talk.

The recruiter will either ghost you, end the conversation, or give you the information you’re looking for.

💔 We’re not a good fit, for now script

You: I appreciate you reaching out. Unfortunately, this role isn’t the right fit for me. I’m targeting {your target position} roles. Let’s connect and if you see any positions that I’m targeting come across your table, feel free to reach out.

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