Invitations from recruiters have become a standard practice on LinkedIn. So have invitations related to potentially doing any business together. If an invitation is accepted, a conversation starts.
However, LinkedIn notifications have poor deliverability, and “passive” candidates often miss our messages and invitations. It helps to invite a larger volume of potential matches and follow-up by email.
The following method meets the goal: it does not have the limit of 100 invitations per week and provides you with emails. It has somewhat changed since the UX lost the uploading a file button.
Start with a list of promising email addresses. They may come from your ATS, other social sites, X-Raying for lists, enriching LinkedIn X-Ray with SalesQL, and other sources.
STEP 1. Upload the list of emails to a Gmail account (make sure to clear out the existing list before uploading).
As a bonus, you will see non-generic pictures by the valid emails:
STEP 2. Remove existing LinkedIn Contacts.
STEP 3. Sync with Gmail Contacts.
See the identified non-connections:
You can start connecting here, but only with a limited number of members.
STEP 4. Connect to any number of members (one by one; it helps to review the profiles) from Contacts. You cannot customize the initial message, but this way is scalable.
STEP 5. You have their emails as well for follow-ups, and can personalize your outreach. (You can InMail them also.)
This technique will work for lists of thousands if desired.
STEP 6. Join me on Wednesday, September 21st, for a new webinar How to Find Hidden LinkedIn Profiles! David Galley follows with an optional practice on Thursday.