Cold calls never get anywhere, in my experience.

When you want to get to the top of someone’s list, for a job or for a reply to an inquiry, it pays to seek and get help. On LinkedIn.

So when I got an email from a long-time acquaintance and she needed to rise to the top of the list for interviews at a company she was eyeing, in the same industry, she looked up the name of the company on its LinkedIn company profile Page, and found the former owner was my first-degree connection.

She asked me to inject my “Halpert brand grease” to make the wheels move more smoothly, which I did in an email since one of the parties does not check LinkedIn often, and the next step in the process was a call by my friend to the right person, as in bringing her name to the current CEO’s attention.

That has some sway, doesn’t it?

Now I’ll ask you a second question: without LinkedIn, could this ever have happened so easily?

Use it, folks, for what it can do to make you more efficient and attractive.