"I don't have a network" is one of the most common reasons engineers skip referrals. Usually, it is not true. What they mean is, "I don't know anyone senior or powerful." That is different.

Your network is not only close friends, managers, or people with hiring authority. It includes classmates, former coworkers, alumni, people from communities, and people you have had real conversations with. Most of them cannot hand you a job. Some of them may be able to help your resume reach the right person. This lesson turns that loose group of contacts into a simple list you can actually use.

You do not need to build a network from zero before asking for referrals. Start with the people you already know, or almost know, who work at companies on your target list. Then sort them by how well they know you.

Your contact map only needs two things at first: where each person works and how well they know you. The company tells you whether they are relevant to your search. The relationship tells you how direct your message can be.

LinkedIn is useful here because it already tracks many of these connections. Search for a company, open the People tab, and filter for your connections. That gives you a starting list. It will not be perfect, and it will miss people, but it is better than relying on memory.

It is easy to define your network too narrowly. For referrals, the useful group is usually broader than close friends.

College alumni are easy to overlook. Someone who graduated from your program a few years before you and now works at your target company may not know you personally, but you still have a shared background. That makes a polite message easier to answer than a completely cold one.

Past coworkers are usually the strongest layer. They have seen how you work, which makes their referral more credible. Even a teammate from an old job may be useful if they moved to a company you are targeting.

Online contacts can count too, but be honest about the relationship. Someone who reviewed your pull request, exchanged thoughtful messages with you, or worked with you in a community is different from someone whose posts you liked twice. Do not treat light online familiarity as a close relationship.

The important point is simple: do not stop at your closest friends. Someone you barely know may still be the only person you know at a company you care about. That does not mean you should ask them for a referral immediately. It means they belong on the map.

Here is one way to think about the four layers. Green is usually warmer and easier to message directly. Yellow is usually cooler and needs more context.

The color is only a rough guide. A close college friend can be warmer than a coworker you barely spoke to. The relationship is what decides how you write the message.

Run the connection-filtered company search

On LinkedIn, search for a target company, open the People tab, and filter by first-degree connections. This shows people you are directly connected to who work there. Repeat this for each company on your list.

Do not worry if the list is small. Even one relevant name is useful.

Check second-degree connections too

For companies where you have no first-degree contact, look at second-degree connections. These are people connected to someone you know. A mutual contact may be able to introduce you, or the shared connection may give you a more natural opening for outreach.

Search your college alumni

Use LinkedIn's alumni tool on your school's page to filter graduates by company and role. Add relevant alumni at target companies to your map, even if you have not met them. Mark them as cool contacts, not warm contacts.

List past coworkers from memory

Not everyone worth contacting will show up neatly in LinkedIn search. Write down former managers, teammates, interns, classmates, and people from projects you worked on. Then look up where they are now. People change companies often, and you may find useful paths you had forgotten.

Categorize each contact by warmth

For every name, mark them warm, cool, or cold. Warm means they will recognize you and probably reply. Cool means there is a real connection, but you may need to remind them who you are. Cold means there is no prior relationship.

This label matters because it changes the message. A former teammate should not receive the same note as an alum who has never met you.

Put it all in one place

A simple spreadsheet is enough. You do not need a special job-search tool or a complicated system. Use one row per person, with columns for name, company, role, how you know them, and warmth. This becomes your outreach list for the rest of the module.

Here's the spreadsheet structure to copy.

The warmth label is not about how much you like someone. It is about how much context they have for your message.

A warm contact will recognize your name and understand why you are reaching out. Former teammates, managers you got along with, close classmates, and people you worked with directly belong here. With these people, you can be direct.

A cool contact has a real but thin link to you: an alum from your school, someone you exchanged a few useful messages with in a community, or a person you met once at an event. They may reply if you remind them of the connection and keep the ask respectful.

A cold contact has no prior relationship with you. You found them through a second-degree search, a company page, or a public profile. Reaching these people is cold outreach, which needs a smaller first ask. Keep them on the map, but do not treat them like referral contacts yet.

Sorting first prevents two common mistakes: over-explaining yourself to someone who already knows you, or sending a one-line "refer me?" message to someone who barely knows who you are.

A lot of useful contacts are people you genuinely knew but have not spoken to in years. That does not make the relationship fake. It just means your first message should not be a job ask.

Start with a short reconnect message. No resume, no referral request, no pressure. The goal is to reopen the conversation naturally.

Reconnect template (no ask):

Why this works: It reminds them how you know each other, shows genuine interest, and does not ask for anything. If they reply, the referral conversation can happen later without feeling like a sudden demand. If they do not reply, leave it alone and move on.

Do not overthink this. One honest message is enough. A long sequence of overly casual messages is worse than being direct.

The most common reason a map comes out short is counting too few people as contacts, and these six are where the names go missing.