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Should I help my friends with a company intro?

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Incoming New Grad SWE @ unicorn at Taro Community2 months ago

I got an offer from company A (series C startup) 6-7 months ago when I was doing new grad recruiting and declined the offer. I have two friends who are interested in working at company A. Both are '24 grads (one year above)

Friend 1:

Friend 1 is an ivy grad and (one year above me) currently works at a no-name company B and got to the final round for a Snowflake/MongoDB/Palantir (company A hires quite a lot of data engineers from this company).

Having talked to the director from company A, I think my friend would be a good fit for company A given their career goals.

Friend 2

Friend 2 is also an ivy grad and has a much stronger brand recognition (FAANG intern + works as a data engineer at Snowflake/MongoDB/Palantir). However the role they're interested in is software engineer, which is an adjacent role.

I have contacts for both the HM and the recruiter. My questions are:

  1. Should I refer either friend? Is there a harm to refer both?
  2. Here's the draft I'm planning to send to the recruiter who talked to me:

Hi XYZ,

I hope you're doing well and it has been a while since we last spoke! I was talking to my friend ABC and I think they're a good fit for the company. ABC previously did <cool thing they did> and when we talked about career aspirations, I thought they might be a good fit due to <specific reason>

I'm wondering if you'd be interested in this friend and if so, I'd be happy to connect you two. I've enclosed their resume below. Thanks and hoping to hear from you!

[My name here]

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Discussion

(2 comments)
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    Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
    a month ago

    If you like them as people (I would assume so as they're your friends), I think you should just refer them. They have very solid backgrounds.

    You seem like a talented person. If someone is genuinely in your network, they are probably also a talented person and are worth referring.

  • 0
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    Tech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
    a month ago

    Yes absolutely do it!! Making introductions where both parties can mutually benefit is an enormously powerful way to grow your network and gain huge career advantages. In some ways, this is a big part of the job of a venture capitalist 😅

    If they get the job and accept the offer, you've earned two very strong allies in both the person you referred and also the hiring manager. Given that these people are smart (you know this to be true both personally and also on paper), there's very little to lose. But a lot to gain.