Joost Boele

Just over three months ago, I left my consultancy job and started in a new role as Chief Information Security Officer. I was part salesperson one day, and became a potential client the next.

I had anticipated this would lead to more people approaching me to peddle their wares and services, but still wasn’t fully prepared for the onslaught of offers and requests I would receive…

Since starting as a CISO, I get the “opportunity” to make just under 1 new “friend” a day. That's excluding the direct messages, emails, and phone calls (which, for completeness, are included in the percentages in the section below).

Investing in 300 new relationships a year is pushing it – especially with that year being my first year in a new organization. And I suspect that with one spurious connection request a day, I’m on the low end of the scale…

But for enjoyment’s sake, and to share some of the lessons I learned to boost my own success rate, I figured I’d let you in on an aggregated overview of what these requests actually look like. A Top 6 of LinkedIn staples, if you will. Want to take a little journey with me?

6. Happening to come across my profile (10% of connection requests)

This little gem seems to be a favorite of recruiters as well as salespeople. 10% of my potential connections just magically discover my profile and feel an urge to get in touch. Typically they don’t specify what they found so interesting about my profile – or why it didn’t catch their eye a couple of months ago.

5. Noting my passion for information security (13%)

A particular favorite of mine, our “shared passion” only becomes apparent after leaving a consultancy job in the very same field. So either I just wasn’t very passionate before (I wonder how they can tell that in the first place), or they didn’t “happen to come across my profile” (see above).

4. A LinkedIn tagline that says “Helping …” or “Enabling …” (20%)

This always makes me wonder who’s being helped or enabled. Especially powerful when the connection request doesn’t come with a personalized copy-paste message, so all I see is their name and the assertion that they’re here to “help”.

3. Wanting to connect with “strong profiles” to “strengthen each other’s network” (26%)

However flattering it may seem to call a person a “strong profile”, they seldom indicate what’s so strong about it (besides a job title that starts in “Chief”). In 100% of cases in this category, there is zero indication of how exactly this mutual strengthening is going to be beneficial to at least one of us.

2. Offering freebies (4%)

This one is amusing rather than annoying. I may not always bite, but by all means, keep piling those surveillance cameras, wine, and managed security services on me.

1. Getting my name wrong. Like, really wrong. (1%)

Nothing says you’ve done your research and really deeply care for me as your client like an introduction that reads “Beste Koen,”. I’m sure that’s not a copy-paste of somebody else’s “personalized” message…

There is a silver lining to all this. Yes, the above is based on actual requests sent to me in just over three months. And yes, it looks pretty bleak at times... But the real value in these messages is that they taught me some valuable things, which I’d also like to share. These things are:

#1: Working internally as a CISO is awesome. I no longer carry the “salesperson warning sign” that came with the job as a Big 4 consultant. Suddenly everybody is more eager to talk to me than before. They know I’m interested in them, their work, and our relationship.

#2: A little care and interest goes a long way . Knowing what I dislike about the random connection requests I receive on LinkedIn has really helped boost my success rate when I reach out to people myself. Sure, a lot of time goes into crafting personalized messages, but even the replies of those who aren’t interested at that point in time result in a potentially long-lasting relationship. And that is both the behavior and the outcome that I like to see in the networking I do on this platform.

If you have experiences or tips to share, I’d be happy to discuss!

Joost Boele

Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
2K followers 500+ connections

Experience

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek

-

Education

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

View Joost’s full profile

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Joost Boele

Joost Boele

Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands 2K followers 500+ connections

Experience

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek

-

Education

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

View Joost’s full profile

Other similar profiles

Henk van der Schuur

Mark Gankema

Bejhan Masha

Sascha Oosterbaan

Helmer Baas

Tiemen van der Tuijn

Adrian C H Koh, LL.M MSc FICA

Dolf Broekaart

Thomas Debray, PhD

Ronald Huijgens

Johan de Jong

Oliver Arthur

Gert-Jan Radstaake

Ben Chini

Prashant Palikhe

Adrian Wolf

Job Oostveen

Clint Pennings

Eva Panczel

Anne Kielman

Explore collaborative articles

Others named Joost Boele

Joost Boele

Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
2K followers 500+ connections