How do I write a cold email asking about a job?

Keep the body between 60 and 90 words. Open by naming the exact role plus one concrete detail from that specific advert, which is what proves you read it. Then two or three numbered proof points that matter to this job, with figures. Then exactly one question, because two questions mean the reader has to compose a reply rather than answer one. Sign off the same way every time: name, phone number, CV attached.

The rules, in the order they matter

Subject: eight words maximum, and it must name the role. A concrete hook, who you are or what you can do. Never "Application for X". No capitals, at most one punctuation mark.

Body: 60 to 90 words. Not counting the greeting or the sign-off. Under 60 you have not said anything. Over 90 it stops being read on a phone between jobs.

Line one names the exact role plus one concrete detail from that specific advert. A product, a site, a shift pattern, a piece of kit, a standard, a venue. This is the whole letter's credibility. It proves in eleven words that you read the thing rather than mail-merged it, and everything after it is read differently as a result.

Then two or three numbered proof points. Written on their own lines. Each has to matter to this job, with figures in it. Never list everything you have ever done: the reader is scanning for fit, and a long list reads as somebody who has not worked out what the job needs.

Then exactly one question. One. A single easy thing to answer. Two questions halve your reply rate, because now the reader has to compose a reply instead of answering one.

Sign off the same way every time. Name, phone number, CV attached. Nothing else.

A worked example

73 words in the body. One detail from the advert in the first line. Two proof points with numbers. One question.

Following up is where most of the replies are

Three touches to one inbox capture around 93% of the replies a sequence will ever earn. A fourth to the same person is pestering.

• Day 4, a short nudge on the same thread. No attachment.
• Day 9, one last nudge, same thread.
• Day 16, only if you know a second real address at that company, one fresh approach to them with the CV. A first email to a new person is a new conversation, which is the one good reason to go past three.
• Any reply stops everything, including an automated one.

Keep follow-ups on the same thread. A new thread reads as a new stranger.

Before you send it

Check it against the list of words that make a letter read as generated. Employers get dozens of those a week now, and reading as generated is fatal however good the rest of it is.

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