How to cold email a recruiter or founder for a job, with templates

An application form puts you in a queue. A short, specific message to the person who owns the hire can take you out of it. Cold outreach is not spam if it is written for one person, about one role, and easy to say yes to. This guide covers who to write to, how to structure the message, and three templates to start from.

Who to contact

• At a small startup (under about 50 people): a founder or the CTO. They often read every application themselves, and many prefer a direct note.
• At a mid-size company: the hiring manager for the team, usually an engineering manager or a team lead. The posting, the team page or the company’s engineering blog often names them.
• At a large company: the recruiter for that role or area, or someone you know on the team who can refer you. A referral at a big company usually beats any cold message.

Apply through the form as well. Most companies need you in their applicant tracking system before anyone can move you forward, and “I applied yesterday for the Backend Engineer role” gives your message a concrete reference.

The structure

1. A subject line that says what this is. “Backend engineer, payments experience, applied for the Platform role” beats “Quick question”.
2. A first line about them, not you. Something specific: the launch last month, the post about their queue rewrite, the problem the posting describes.
3. One or two lines of proof. The single most relevant thing you have done, with a number if there is one.
4. A small, clear ask. “Would you be open to a 15-minute call?” or “Could you pass my application to the hiring manager?”. One ask, not three.
5. Links, not attachments, in a DM. In email, attach your resume as a PDF. On X or LinkedIn, link to your resume or portfolio.

Keep it under 120 words. If it does not fit on a phone screen without scrolling, cut it.

Template 1: emailing a hiring manager about a role

Subject: Frontend engineer, design systems, applied for Senior Frontend

Hi Priya,

I read your post about moving the dashboard to server components, and the trade-offs you wrote up on streaming matched what we hit at my current job. I lead our component library (40 components, used by 6 product teams) and cut our bundle by 30% last quarter.

I applied for the Senior Frontend role yesterday. Would you be open to a 15-minute call this week or next? My resume is attached.

Thanks,
Arjun

Template 2: asking for a referral

Hi Sam,

We overlapped at the 2025 React meetup in Pune. I saw your team is hiring a backend engineer for the billing service, and I have spent the last two years on billing at a SaaS company (Go, Postgres, Stripe).

Would you be comfortable referring me? I have put the job link and my resume below so you can judge the fit first. No worries at all if it is not a good match.

The last line matters. It gives the other person an easy way to say no, which makes yes more likely.

Template 3: a DM to a startup founder on X

Hey Maya, loved the demo of the new sync engine. I built offline sync for a field-service app (React Native, 10k daily users) and would love to help with yours. Saw the founding engineer role, applied on your site. Open to a quick chat?

DMs are shorter and less formal than email: no subject, no sign-off, one idea per message.

Following up

Send one follow-up after about a week, in the same thread, with something new: a project you shipped, a question about the role, a sentence on why you are still interested. If there is no reply after that, move on. Silence is common and rarely personal.

What not to do

• Do not send the same message to five people at the same company at once.
• Do not open with “I know you are busy, but…”. Get to the point.
• Do not ask “Are there any openings?”. Find the opening first and name it; the job board lists roles straight from company career pages.
• Do not paste your whole resume into the message body.

Drafting outreach with Lazee

The Lazee extension has a Cold DM tab inside Gmail compose and in X direct messages. You give it the recipient, the company or founder, a message type (job inquiry, networking, collaboration proposal, freelance pitch or custom) and one of four tones (professional, casual, friendly, Gen Z). It drafts the message from your real profile and, if you add it, the job description. In Gmail it fills the subject and body and can attach the resume you pick; on X it writes a short message with no subject. You edit it, then send it yourself.

Cold DM is a Pro feature. It costs 6 credits per message on Lazee AI, or 12 with the job description, and 0 credits with your own API key. On the free plan, each message uses one Pro Pass, which you earn by referring friends.