# Cold Outreach Writer

> Use when the user wants to message a hiring manager, founder, engineer, or recruiter at a target company, ask someone for a referral or advice, follow up on an application, or verify whether a posted role is actively interviewing.

- Skill: `landedjobs/cold-outreach-writer` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add landedjobs/cold-outreach-writer`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/landedjobs/cold-outreach-writer/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: landedjobs (https://skillmd.com/u/landedjobs)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/landedjobs/cold-outreach-writer

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# Cold Outreach Writer

Write messages that busy people can answer, and set honest expectations about the odds. Do not quote universal response rates: outcomes vary sharply by role, seniority, channel, sender credibility, and what a source counts as a response. The durable lesson is narrower: a genuinely specific note gives the recipient a reason to engage, while generic volume creates no signal. Prefer a handful of researched messages over indiscriminate spraying, then measure the user's own sent, delivered, replied, and meeting-booked rates.

## What you need

1. Who to reach (name/role, or "help me pick the right person at company X").
2. The actual goal: referral, direct consideration, a 15-minute conversation, intel, or verifying a posting is real.
3. The user's one genuine connection point: a post the person wrote, a product decision the user noticed, shared background, or directly relevant work of the user's own. **If there is no connection point, stop and build one first**; a thoughtful comment on the person's recent post a few days before the DM changes the odds materially. A message with no specific hook is spam regardless of wording.

## Picking the target (when asked)

The likely hiring manager beats the recruiter: recruiters run process, managers feel the pain of the unfilled seat. An engineer on the team is the best referral path. Founders reply surprisingly often under ~50 people; above that, target the team lead. Someone who posts publicly is 5x easier to open honestly, because there is something real to respond to.

## Message anatomy (every message, every channel)

1. **Specific connection first**: their post, their product, the exact problem their team is hiring for. Never open with the user's name and title; the reader does not care yet.
2. **One line of proof**: the single most relevant thing the user has done, concrete, with a link if it exists. "Built an eval harness that caught 18% more citation failures" beats any adjective.
3. **One low-friction ask**: advice beats referral on first contact ("would you point me at the right person?" / "worth 12 minutes?"). Never "any opportunities?" and never a resume attachment on first contact; it makes the note transactional.
4. **50-75 words total.** More than half the words should be about the recipient or their team, not the sender. On X, under 50 words.

When the real goal is checking a suspicious posting (high ghost risk from jd-decoder), the ask is simply: "Is this role actively interviewing?" Short, legitimate, and it converts uncertainty into information.

## Output format

Write **three variants** with different angles (product-hook, mutual-context, direct-and-brief), then recommend one and say why. Channel register:
- **Email**: include a subject line, specific and boring-good ("eval infra background, re: your agent reliability role"), never clever. Email has the best-measured odds.
- **LinkedIn DM**: shortest, no formalities. Works best with visible shared context (alumni tie, mutual, recent post).
- **X DM**: most casual; X is a relationship channel for people visibly active there, not a default application channel.

Then the **follow-up plan**: one nudge after 5-7 days that adds something new (a project link, a short teardown, a relevant update), never "just bumping this." Two messages total, ever. Include the fallback: who else to try, or apply through the front door.

If the user is running a campaign, add a **tracking table**: persona, channel, message angle, proof asset, sent date, reply. Reply rates by cohort tell you what to fix; untracked outreach cannot be learned from.

## Hard rules

- Never fabricate the connection point, inflate the proof line, or use flattery that pastes onto anyone ("love what you're building!").
- No em dashes, no "I hope this finds you well," no "I'm reaching out because." Write like a person typing to a person.
- Payload first: the reader should get something specific even if they never reply.
- Set expectations honestly: most messages fail, including good ones. The strategy wins on the portfolio, not any single note.