Direct marketing working (kind of)

[TykeMerc]

U can also telnet onto their mail server on port 25 and issue some SMTP commands;

HELO and a MAIL FROM and a RCPT TO I think from memory....

The first two u can prolly make up, the third will be rejected if it's not valid.

U'll also need to query DNS for the MX record of the domain to get the proper mail server host.

Long time since I did this so I might have it a bit wrong!

Would someone please translate the kiddie txtspk in this post into English for me so that I can read this without getting a headache?

[stek]

U can also telnet onto their mail server on port 25 and issue some SMTP commands;

HELO and a MAIL FROM and a RCPT TO I think from memory....

The first two u can prolly make up, the third will be rejected if it's not valid.

U'll also need to query DNS for the MX record of the domain to get the proper mail server host.

Long time since I did this so I might have it a bit wrong!

[d000hg]

Places don't typically have a catch-all *@company.com? That would make it hard to tell it was received, unless you put one of those read receipts on using Outlook.

[FiveTimes]

I did that yesterday to one company I new had my skill set and I wanted to work for.

It took three attempts for the email not to bounce
<firstname><lastname>@comany.com - failed
<firstname> . <lastname>@comany.com - failed

but
<intial><lastname>@company.com worked

I've not had a response yet

[mudskipper]

Good job! Having recently left a permie role, it became very tedious wading through CVs from agents. No-one ever approached me like that, but I suspect they would have got a little more attention than most - by emailing (and presumably therefore revealing name and gender) you've already made yourself into a person rather then just a skillset, and demonstrated proactiveness, communication skills etc. Hope you get the right result!

[NickFitz]

Did you try various email permutations and see which worked?

It's usually not too difficult to work out what strategy a company uses for forming email addresses, assuming they have one at all. Find a few email addresses for individuals at the company and it's normally pretty clear that they do something like first.last@example.com, last.f@example.com and so forth.

Oddly enough it seems to be bigger computing-related companies that have weirder policies; for example, Microsoft uses some letters from your first name and the initial of your surname, such as billg, raymondc - although a friend of mine with a double-barelled surname had the first six letters of his first name followed by the two initials of his two-part surname. (As one might expect with MS, it's also slightly more confusing than that for outsiders.)

Of course it gets even more complicated when they start adding numbers at the end of duplicated names: there's not much point sending email to mary.smith@example.com if Mary Smith the catering manager was there before Mary Smith the project manager, who got lumbered with mary.smith2

[DieScum]

Did you try various email permutations and see which worked?

No. Only sent two email got two replies. So I guess it worked first time.

Funny thing is I replied to twenty jobserve ads the previous week without a sniff so it's nice to get some positive feedback.

I think I got replies because the companies are a perfect fit for my niche skillset. So that doesn't scale too well.

The thing is it was much easier to right a decent covering letter because I knew it who was going to be read my someone who would have a clue and be interested.

Nothing may come of it... but it's a nice different approach.

[d000hg]

Nice. I've toyed with it but never at a sustained/serious level.

Did you try various email permutations and see which worked?

[MPwannadecentincome]

well done - good work!

[DieScum]

So I did that thing that I've been meaning to do for a while.

Came up with a list of companies that sound cool and who would be interested in my skillset.

Searched on google, linkedin, etc to find the names of technical directors.

Came up with two names in two companies.

Guessed their email addresses by a cunningly combining their names and companies to get firstnamelastname@company.com.

Emailed them Monday with my CV and an email apologising for approaching them directly but pointing out my experience and interest.

Nothing all week then two responses today.

One guy has no opportunities at the moment but we chatted over a few emails and he "has my CV at the top of the pile". It sounds like he actually means it rather the evil HR shove off with a smile.

Other chap wants to speak to me next week to "discuss opportunities."

So that's at least a little bit positive and not an agent in sight!

Anyone else do this kind of thing?