This got me thinking today as a person reached out to me through an online network that I usually reserve for people I have actually met. However, he was able to find me there as apparently, he worked with someone I knew. The interesting thing was he actually had another contact he could have reached me directly by but he thought since it was a generic e-mail it may have gotten lost in the shuffle. So he tried to be more direct this way.
I was actually going to ignore the request, but knowing that he knew someone that I did as well made me take it seriously. He didn’t even mention that either as it was all automated by the site in terms of trying to label who knows who. It was a great example in terms of the power of a connection as the assumption is often if the person knows a mutual contact that you get a long with then likely they will be a good person as well.
You still need to do your due diligence of course. But imagine the business connections and work opportunities one can open without having to do hard pitches per se.