In today’s tough job market, job seekers are doing everything they can to get noticed by hiring managers. For example, sending a direct message to your future boss to start work.
As long as you approach it the right way, it can work out.
The excellent self-suggestion caught the attention of Phoebe Gates and Sofia Chiani, co-founders of the buzzy AI-powered shopping agency Phia. They said they got some of their early adopters from their Instagram and LinkedIn inboxes.
In a conversation at the SXSW conference in Austin on March 13, the co-founders said that in addition to posting the opening on their official message board via Ashby, they also posted a call on Instagram and LinkedIn asking their followers to introduce themselves and express interest via DM.
Candidates were given three sentences to make their case, and Chianni said: “We’d like you to pitch us who you are (and) what you’ve done in the past, what you want to do with Fia, and how you can solve the problem for us.”
Chianni said this method is the “best filtering mechanism” to assess appropriate suitability.
“Rep 1 bombards you with a very long ChatGPT text that is very difficult to understand, and Rep 2 gives you a very concise pitch about why they are a good candidate for your company,” she said.
In a market where recruiters are “drinking from a fire hose” of applications, unique, concise and impactful messages become even more important. A typical job opening in 2025 will receive an average of 244 applications, more than double the number in 2022, according to Greenhouse data.
AI tools make it easier to mass apply to jobs, but relying on these algorithms without adding your own personal touch can make your resume and cover letter too generic.
Meanwhile, if a well-crafted message answers Kianni’s three questions and hits the mark, she checks the candidate’s LinkedIn profile to see if the skills match and sets up a direct introductory call.
Of course, not all recruiters welcome direct messages to their inboxes, especially to their personal social media handles. So before you reach out about a job, use good judgment and pay attention to messages about how to get hired.
So far, this has worked out well for Kiana and her co-founders in an “unconventional” way. “A lot of our hires come from good old-fashioned cold direct mail,” she says. In the first year since launch, Gates and Chiani have maintained a small team of about 20 employees, hiring for positions ranging from interns to engineers to chief financial officer.
As an AI-powered shopping platform, Phia’s founders also want to make sure candidates are using technology in a smart way. Gates, 23, said he values candidates who can demonstrate a “high degree of independence” and creativity in leveraging AI to do more at work, perhaps alluding to the type of problem-solving that could feature prominently as part of a three-sentence pitch.
Gates gave the example of one of his operations teams who reduced the time it took to get revenue numbers by building an agent that could quickly run revenue numbers.
“That trend is going to continue to increase,” Gates said. “People with high levels of agency are going to be able to do more and more things, and they’re going to be able to use AI to basically enhance[their jobs]and they won’t have to do a lot of the manual, arduous tasks that they used to have to do.”
The co-founders also discussed the importance of building a strong network when starting your career. In addition to keeping an eye out for potential direct mail, Gates and Kiani said they hired some employees by cold messaging people they wanted to work with and through referrals from their networks.
Mr Chianni said: “Having the person assure us that we are a good employer and at the same time assure us that they are a good employee is often the easiest way to make the hiring process very quick.”
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