Item — HN Reader

The problem here is that most points are about how to formulate your ask. I think the biggest thing is that you're much more likely to get help if you show you're doing the best to solve it yourself.

There's a big difference between:

"Hey, I saw this job at [company you work at], could you refer me please? I'm [lists skills and experience]"

and

"Hey I'm thinking of applying to [company you work at] for the product designer position and I want to make an impression, so I'm putting together a demo Figma with a couple of things I'd fix and how. I spotted those when I did the onboarding for your free trial. I'm curious if you could tell me whether [design flaw] is intentional to deter abuse or if that's something I could fix? Totally get if that's confidential"

The part where you're solving the problem instead of hoping someone else will solve it for you, that's much more important then how you word it.

6 comments

I refer a lot of people and I would be more likely to respond to the first one. Provided they supply a job link, their resume, and they were well qualified and polite.

In the second one it’s really obvious to me that they just want a referral. It would annoy me that they are making me read extraneous information.

Yup. I read the second version twice and am still not sure what the ask is and what to do. Prime example of not having a clear ask and showing too much hubris behind some polite questions. "Have you ever considered making a better product?"

I agree here as well first one is direct upto the point and doesnt beat around the bush

> whether [design flaw] is intentional to deter abuse or if that's something I could fix?

The chance that I know whether or not it’s intentional is extremely low. If I don’t work on that part of the app, I’m not going to go chase down the product person would might know.

I think it’s much, much less likely to get any response, despite being higher effort on the sender. It’s too specific and too likely to step on a landmine of “I don’t know the answer and I’m not going to go on a side quest to find it for someone I don’t know…”

I agree with this and think the most important part here is less about you actually solving any specific problem and more about your prospect as a possible value add instead of just another task on your TODO list

I think that if you make your request too specific, like in the second example, you might seem less approachable, and you'll cutting yourself off from a lot of potential serendipity. The first question could result in "No, but I know someone else you could talk to." The second question requires the person you're messaging to be willing and able to go down a very specific path.

I think that was the gist of the first point: “show you’re a serious person”

"Help me help you" stands.

I don't think it's just that, I also think it's "be someone I want to help"