Reaching out for Short-Term work experience on LinkedIn

Hi everyone, hope you're good.

I've recently been emailing a lot of companies trying to gain some very short term work experience. I always say that there is no need to prepare anything in advance for me, and I would just love to gain some insight into the environment and shadow employees.

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten any replies in almost a month, so I'm planning on changing strategies and now I'm going to message people directly on LinkedIn.

My question is, how would you recommend reaching out to people asking for one weeks work experience. Would you recommend starting a conversation first, or getting straight to the point?

Also, if someone at that company doesn't respond, say within 2 weeks, would you recommend reaching out to another person at that same company?

Many thanks for any help :smile:

Reply 1

marcus.0

Cold calling, cold emailing, or cold messaging doesn't really work at high school level. The people you're contacting don't owe you anything, nor would they be interested in going through multiple people to onboard a high schooler for a week.
The most effective way unfortunately is through people you know. Maybe a friend's dad works at somewhere you'd be interested in getting work experience in?

You may get lucky if you keep reaching out like this, but people are very rarely successful. Best of luck.

Reply 2

Carter03052

Original post

by marcus.0

Cold calling, cold emailing, or cold messaging doesn't really work at high school level. The people you're contacting don't owe you anything, nor would they be interested in going through multiple people to onboard a high schooler for a week.
The most effective way unfortunately is through people you know. Maybe a friend's dad works at somewhere you'd be interested in getting work experience in?
You may get lucky if you keep reaching out like this, but people are very rarely successful. Best of luck.

Sorry I should have specified in the post, I'm currently a second year law student at university. Unfortunately I don't have any legal connections, which is why I'm reaching out to people. I understand it is time consuming for an employee to organise a work experience placement, but do you have any tips on how to obtain a short one? Perhaps saying I can help with certain tasks, or that there wouldn't need to prepare anything in advance for me, and I can just shadow.

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post

by Carter03052

Realistically your best bet is probably to apply to advertised opportunities in terms of work experience I imagine. You may want to speak to your university's careers team and/or if there's a student law society ask around in there.

I agree with the above that I don't think cold calling is really a high yield activity for this or a valuable use for your time as a result. Spending that time crafting a CV and engaging in activities to enhance your CV and applying to established and advertised opportunities is probably more productive. I think all the points they make realistically still apply to uni students (especially if you have NO work experience e.g. not even working in a shop or a call centre or an office doing non-legal stuff i.e. anything to prove you can do something beyond go to lectures and take exams...!).

Spoiler

(edited 2 months ago)

Reply 4

quietmodule41

LinkedIn might be the most overrated tool for landing internships/jobs.

Reply 5

Carter03052

Original post

by artful_lounger

Realistically your best bet is probably to apply to advertised opportunities in terms of work experience I imagine. You may want to speak to your university's careers team and/or if there's a student law society ask around in there.
I agree with the above that I don't think cold calling is really a high yield activity for this or a valuable use for your time as a result. Spending that time crafting a CV and engaging in activities to enhance your CV and applying to established and advertised opportunities is probably more productive. I think all the points they make realistically still apply to uni students (especially if you have NO work experience e.g. not even working in a shop or a call centre or an office doing non-legal stuff i.e. anything to prove you can do something beyond go to lectures and take exams...!).

Spoiler

Thanks so much for the reply, I appreciate you taking the time. Fortunately I've worked quite a few part-time jobs for a few years already, and I've done a decent bit of volunteering. I've got a few smaller bits of legal work experience already (mainly insight days), but I'm really trying to get some informal experience in an in-house legal team, specifically in the entertainment industry. I've reached out to people who have previously completed experience there on LinkedIn, but it seems they've gotten these experiences through family connections unfortunately for me. I think it's still worth a shot reaching out though, and saying things like 'I previously spoke to X, who completed experience in your department' and so on.