Seems like over the past few years, the amount of cold e-mail solicitations has blossomed like black mold in a damp hot basement.
I blame it all on LinkedIn. I’m seriously considering closing my account there. I consistently delete 99.9% of these queries from unsolicited 3rd parties. Many of them at least put a little creativity in their hook, like having the e-mail come from an admin, requesting a telephone conference call with her boss. Then the multiple follow-ups to try and get me on the phone. I probably get about 3-5 emails a day like this.
I know some people feel that they should follow up with all correspondence regardless to let the counterparty know they are not interested. I personally treat these people as corporate telemarketers. If I need a professional service, I’ll come looking for you.
Have you considered separating your life? My LinkedIn account uses a Gmail account just for it and nothing else. So if I receive a LinkedIn email at work, I know it’s bogus.
That said at work I get maybe 15-20 cold emails every day that don’t automatically go into the SPAM or Junk folders. It’s normal because of what I do.
My email isn’t posted on LinkedIn, but the e-mail protocol for my employer (over 25,000 employees) is known, so taking my name and my employer it’s pretty easy to figure out my e-mail…as such these cold e-mails are not coming through LinkedIn, but because corporate spammers selling advisory services, IT services, research services, working capital management, time and expense management etc. feel like these are easy leads to try to connect to.
What gets me is the total lack of effort involved with these e-mails. When I have a work e-mail which is very clearly a Canadian government address, and I get cold e-mails about U.S. business taxes or commercial property in Arizona, it’s very clear that they are just shotgunning to a list of addresses they have never even looked at.