How to Contact Recruiters on LinkedIn (With Good and Bad Message Examples)

How to contact recruiters on LinkedIn on a free account: the 200-character note limit, who to message, good vs bad examples, templates, follow-up timing and the scam signs.

Every guide on this topic tells you to personalize your connection request. Few mention that a free LinkedIn account only lets you do that a handful of times a month, and that the note is shorter than most of them say.

So this guide starts with the budget. Then it covers who is worth one of those notes, what a good and a bad message look like side by side, templates that fit the limit, when to follow up, and how to spot a "recruiter" who is after your money.

LinkedIn gives free accounts three or five personalized notes a month, so spend them well

LinkedIn's help page on personalized invitations sets two limits for free accounts. In its own words: "You can add a personalized message to up to three connection requests per month", and "Each message can be up to 200 characters" (LinkedIn Help). Premium members get unlimited personalized invitations. LinkedIn's billing help page contradicts it and says five a month for free accounts (LinkedIn Help). We cannot tell which page is current, so check the counter on your own account. Either way, it is single digits.

Several guides on this topic still quote 300 characters for the note. LinkedIn's own page says 200 for a free account. Write to 200 and your note fits whatever account you have. Every example in this article is under 200 characters, with the count shown.

A cap this low changes the strategy:

1. Spend notes on the people who decide. An in-house recruiter hiring for a role you have just applied to is worth a note. A recruiter at a company you might like someday is not.
2. Connect without a note for everyone else. A plain request costs nothing from the monthly budget. Once the person accepts, you are first-degree connections and you can message them, with no 200-character cap.
3. Write the real message after they accept. That is where the full pitch goes, and it is the message most of the examples below are built for.

Who to message: agency recruiter, in-house recruiter or hiring manager

"Recruiter" covers three different people, and they want different things from you.

• In-house recruiters (titles like Talent Acquisition, Technical Recruiter, People Partner) work for one company and fill its openings. Message them about a specific role at that company, ideally one you have applied to.
• Agency recruiters work for a recruitment firm and are paid by the employer when they place someone. They hold several clients' roles at once, so they want to know quickly what you do, where, and when you are free. A short profile of yourself is the right message here, not a question about one job.
• Hiring managers run the team you would join. At a small company with no recruiter, they are the person to write to. At a large one, a message to the manager usually gets forwarded to the recruiter anyway, so start with the recruiter.

To find them, open the company's LinkedIn page, go to the People tab and search "recruiter" or "talent". On a job post, LinkedIn sometimes shows the person who posted it or a "Meet the hiring team" box; that is the best name you will get. Before you write, check your own profile is ready for the visit your message triggers: the headline and About section are what they read next. Our guide to optimising your LinkedIn profile covers those fields.

Good and bad messages, side by side

Each bad version below is a common shape: a request with no context, a job request with no job, a pitch that is all adjectives. Each good version fits in a free account's 200 characters.

What the good versions share: the recruiter's name, a reason to write to this person and not another, one fact they could check, and a question they can answer in one line. "Open to anything" sounds flexible. To a recruiter it means they have to work out what you do before they can help.

The message to send once they accept

The connection note opens the door. This is the message that does the work, and it has no 200-character cap. Keep it under 100 words anyway: it is read on a phone, between other messages.

Notice what it does not do. It does not paste the cover letter, attach a resume nobody asked for, or ask for a call. The recruiter can reply in one line, and the one fact in the middle is the line they will repeat to the hiring manager.

Five templates to copy

The first four fit under 200 characters once filled with short words. Swap the brackets and count again before sending. LinkedIn stops you at the limit, and a note cut mid-sentence reads worse than a shorter one.

1. After applying (in-house recruiter).

   Hi [Name], I applied for the [Role] role (ref. [number]) on [day]. I [one result with a number] at [Company]. Happy to send anything that helps your review.

2. Agency recruiter in your field.

   Hi [Name], I see you recruit [roles] in [sector]. I'm a [title] with [X] years in [speciality], available from [month], [city or remote]. Can I send you my resume?

3. Company you want, no opening.

   Hi [Name], I read your post on [topic]. I'm a [title] with [X] years in [field] and I follow [Company] closely. Do you hire [level/role] in [team or city]?

4. After meeting at an event.

   Hi [Name], we spoke at [event] about [topic]. I'm the [title] who [one detail they'll remember]. Good luck with the [project/hire].

5. Replying to a recruiter who wrote first. No note needed, they started it. Answer within a day or two, say whether you are interested, and give your notice period and location so they can check fit before a call.

Template 3 is the one to use sparingly. A note to a company with no opening is a speculative application, and it works best when the role you name is one the company plausibly hires for.

A real recruiter never asks you to pay

LinkedIn messages are also where fake recruiters work. In 2019 the US Federal Trade Commission stopped an operation that "sent consumers unsolicited messages through well-known business networking websites, like LinkedIn", claiming exclusive links to private equity firms, and charged job seekers $1,200 to $2,500 upfront (FTC press release). The FTC's consumer protection director put it plainly: "Paying upfront for job placement services is often a sign of a scam."

In the UK the rule is written down: "Recruitment agencies cannot charge you a fee for finding or trying to find you work" (GOV.UK). They may charge for separate services such as CV writing or training, but they cannot make you buy them to be put forward.

When to follow up, and when to stop

Recruiters miss messages. One follow-up is normal, a second is the limit. Our follow-up date calculator treats an unsolicited approach as needing 7 working days before the first follow-up, then 7 more before the second (weekends are skipped, and you can switch on French public holidays). A LinkedIn message to a recruiter is that kind of approach, so the same timing fits.

The follow-up itself is two lines: a reminder of the role or the question, and one new fact if you have one (an interview elsewhere, a certificate, a portfolio link). After the second message with no answer, stop and put your time into the next application. If a recruiter does reply with something vague, our guide to what recruiter phrases actually mean helps you read it.

Make it easy for them to say yes

Have a resume ready before they ask

The best answer to a good message is "send me your resume". If your resume is out of date, that request sits for days while you rewrite it, which wastes the reply you worked for. Our LinkedIn import turns your profile into a resume in one pass, so the resume and the profile the recruiter just looked at say the same thing.

Use Open to Work, knowing its limits

The "Recruiters only" setting shows that you are looking to LinkedIn Recruiter users without the green photo frame. LinkedIn says it takes steps to hide this from recruiters at your current company, "but we can't guarantee complete privacy" (LinkedIn Help). If your employer finding out would be a problem, leave it off and rely on the messages you send.

Common questions

Should I give my resume to a recruiter?

To an in-house recruiter, yes: you are applying to their company anyway. To an agency recruiter, yes, but ask them to tell you before they send it to any employer. That way the same company does not receive you twice, once from you and once from an agency that expects a fee.

Should I message a recruiter on LinkedIn after an interview?

A short thank-you the same day or the next is fine, especially if the recruiter ran the interview. Do not use it to ask for the decision. If they gave you a date, wait until it has passed by a working day before asking.

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