How to Change an "I'm Happy To Announce..." Post Into Your Own

Flashback to only a few years ago, and I’m a student in university. I open up my LinkedIn at 8:00AM in the morning, scrolling through my feed to pass time by as I wait for my first class.

It’s hiring season. How do I know this? Simply from the amount of posts that pop into my feed which start with these 4 words:

“I’m happy to announce….”

These 4 words are all you need to know what the announcement is: this person got a new job, an internship for summer, or accomplished something special. Most of these posts don’t have takeaways that a person from the outside looking in can utilize for their own careers; it’s simply an announcement, but it is an accomplishment the person should be proud of.

At the end of the day, I say “congrats”; congrats to you, but I wish in my mind, I had something “happy to announce” too.

What happens if I told you that those “I’m happy to announce…” posts can be utilized to your advantage? Or that these posts are ACTUALLY a foot in the door to your dream company?

When seeing these posts, I remember thinking “wow, I don’t have many achievements; I just have my fair share of rejections from companies”. However, I changed that mindset and noticed that these posts gave me the “keys to the car” that would change the direction of my career.

Want to know how? Read below to find out how you can turn from an underdog into a winner simply from a “I’m happy to announce…” post.

The Background of the “I’m Happy to Announce…” Post

You’ve probably been through your LinkedIn and noticed tens of hundreds of these posts; what are they exactly? 

To understand them, they are LinkedIn posts from those who have recently achieved something in their career/lives; for example, they can be in regards to accepting a job/internship offer or a scholarship.

While doing a search of these posts, I found that there were THOUSANDS of them; a more interesting stat was there was only ~2% of the posts that would have a takeaway(s) in which the reader can learn how they earned the accomplishment and how they can utilize it in their career. To empower our communities and help future generations, it’s important to include a takeaway(s) so others can learn from the accomplishments.

Although only ~2% had a takeaway, about ~20% of them had something else which was VITALLY important to use for your advantage. Find out in the next section what exactly this was.

“Thank You To……”

When scrolling through these posts, I noticed that some of these posts would have a section, usually at the end, that would say ‘thank you to…”. How does it look exactly? See below.

“Thank you very much to Samatha Kooman, Jonathan Matos, and the rest of JPMC team that I’ve connected with for helping me through this process”.

Do you see what it said there? You can notice the person TAGGED the people who helped him/her earn the accomplishment. “So what?” you’re probably saying, but this means so much more than meets the eye.

“If those people helped him/her get the job/internship, why wouldn’t they be able to help me?”

The answer is: they WOULD be able to! If you look at most of these posts with the tags, most of these people are the hiring managers/recruiters for these specific positions. See below as an example to the JPMorgan post.

The person that was tagged in the post is the CAMPUS RECRUITER FOR SOFTWARE ENGINEERS. Imagine you are a student/professional and you’re an aspiring software engineer; this would be perfect for you because you’d know exactly who the recruiter is, what their LinkedIn is, and then can reach out to them to inquire about opportunities!

Now, how do you reach out to these people? See below!

How To Reach Out To These Professionals!

When reaching out to these professionals tagged in the post, simply send them a message in relation to the post you saw them tagged in. It can go as follows:

By sending a simple personal invite just as the one I’ve sent above, you can connect with them which can lead to an opportunity.

“Why should you send a personal invite?”

By sending a personal invite, it does the following:

• Builds a great first impression by introducing yourself and acknowledging you did research on their profile
• Shows that you know the person they helped receive the offer (mutual connection)
• Exemplifies your willingness to learn and receive guidance on these opportunities

The Message

Let’s say Samantha adds you back on LinkedIn; After she adds you, send her a message similar to the following:

By sending a message simple as this, you establish the following:

• Establish rapport by saying “thanks for connecting on LinkedIn” and being “thankful for their willingness to help”
• Showing that you saw the post on LinkedIn from (person) and that you know them/of them
• Asking for help and a phone chat to learn more about the opportunity

Through these simple steps, you can get into your dream career by finding recruiters, hiring managers, and professionals in different industries. This is how I was able to land interviews (and my clients/mentees too!) at some of the top companies including Google, Deloitte, Snap, and even JPMorgan.

At the end of this article, I hope you can turn someone’s “I’m happy to announce…” into your own announcements ??

By doing so, we can turn from an underdog into a winner. If it was helpful, please leave a comment below, share, or follow me/Wonsulting for more #JWoW advice!

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Jonathan Javier is a graduate from the University of California, Riverside. He has worked at top companies in Strategy and Operations including Snap, Google, and currently Cisco. He runs his own career consulting firm, Wonsulting, and leads the ALPFA National Ambassador Program. He works on many different initiatives including #JWoW, #JustJWoW, and #WeeklyWordsofWisdom to name a few. In total, he has led 47+ Career Development workshops in 4 different countries, creating his own speaker series called #JWoWSpeakerSeries.

His mission is "to turn underdog's into winners": meaning helping those who have been through career obstacles, whether it is coming from non-target schools or non-traditional backgrounds, to get them into their dream careers by providing his words of wisdom through posts and articles on LinkedIn.

Please reach out if you're interested in Wonsulting's services, whether it is a speaking engagement or career consulting! Cheers ??

Speaker/Service Inquiries: [email protected] or wonsulting.com