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Writing the perfect Connect email to a mentor or professional can be the difference between getting ignored or getting invited for a lab tour. Our team has sent thousands of emails to professionals and companies, and we’ve had a fair amount of success. Below, we’ve compiled some of our best tips to help you increase your chances of getting a response.
The correct title. Check LinkedIn to see if they have a PHD, and always go the most formal route for first emails. Any sort of degree or title takes years of schooling and/or hard work, and you never want to diminish that by not checking thoroughly.
Next, you want to give a short introduction to who you are and/or who your team is, and why we are contacting them. For us, this typically looks like…
We are Team Curiosity (no need to include your team number; this means nothing to them!), a high school robotics team from Los Angeles, CA. We’re all super interested in XYZ, and we love learning about XYZ.
3. Try your best to reference their specific work—do your research! We mention specific projects they’ve worked on, labs or papers they’ve been a part of, and anything else that catches our eye. This helps keep us authentic, because we only email people we are fascinated by, and also shows that you’re genuinely interested!
4. Always start with a small ask—for us, typically a 30 minute zoom call—and go from there. It’s a lot easier to say yes to a quick Zoom meeting than a full lab tour or funding.
5. Say thank you! Use your best grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, and PROOFREAD! Be extremely polite.
6. We typically have whoever is sending the email sign off using their first name, and then use the team email signature. This adds a face behind the email while still keeping it team relevant (we also use a team email!)
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