What should you say when someone gets a new job?

Three lines and no ask. Name the move specifically, so it is obvious you read more than a notification. Say the one thing only you could say, which usually means recalling something about how they work or a conversation you had. Then stop. The temptation is to add that you would love to catch up soon, and it weakens the message, because it turns a gift into the opening of a negotiation. Send the good wishes on their own and let them land.

Is it better to message on LinkedIn or send an email?

Email, if you have the address, because that is where the message survives. A LinkedIn congratulation lands in a stack of a hundred identical ones during the week someone starts a job, and it is read in a feed rather than an inbox. An email arrives alone. The exception is a contact you have only ever known through LinkedIn, where an email out of nowhere is stranger than the message you are trying to send.

How long after someone starts a new job should you reach out?

The congratulations belongs in the first two or three weeks, while it is still news. After a month it reads as if you found out late, which is fine but carries less warmth. The more valuable message is the second one, about three months in. By then the welcome flood has stopped, they have worked out what the job actually requires, and they know what they are missing. Almost nobody writes at that point, which is exactly why it works.

Should you ask for something when congratulating someone on a new role?

Not in the first message. Someone starting a job is being asked for things by everyone, and adding to that pile makes you one of the crowd on the day you had a chance not to be. If you genuinely need something, be direct and separate about it rather than wrapping it in congratulations, because the wrapping is transparent and it costs more than the ask would have. Save any request for the follow-up, and only if it fits what they now do.

Managing your network

What to say when someone changes jobs

A job change is the best reconnect you will ever be handed, and almost everyone wastes it on a one-click congratulations. What to write instead.

September 5, 2026

A job change is the easiest reconnect there is, because the news gives you a reason to write and nobody finds it strange. Skip the one-click congratulations, which arrives alongside two hundred identical ones. Send three lines instead: name the specific move, say the one thing only you would say about them doing it, and ask for nothing. Then write again in about three months, when they know what they actually need.

The best reconnect you will ever be handed

Reaching out to someone you have lost touch with is awkward mostly because you need a reason, and manufacturing one is obvious. A job change removes that problem completely. The news is the reason, it is public, and nobody wonders why you are writing.

It also happens to be the moment their situation changes most. New budget, new team, new problems, a new set of things they need and do not yet have. Whatever you knew about their work last year is now partly out of date, and they know it too.

There is a reason this matters more than it looks. Susan McPherson, in The Lost Art of Connecting, cites Mark Granovetter's 1973 study of how professionals actually find work. Of a random sample who had found a new job, 82 percent found it through a contact they saw only occasionally or rarely. Not close friends. The loose ties.

The person who just changed jobs is standing on the far side of that finding. Their network worked. And the loose ties are, by definition, the people who were not in touch and reached out anyway.

What almost everyone sends

A click. LinkedIn puts a button under the announcement and several hundred people press it, and the recipient scrolls a wall of the same word.

Bob Burg makes the case in Endless Referrals for the personal note, and his argument is not that notes are charming. It is arithmetic. Almost nobody sends one, which is exactly why one lands. The effort is the signal. A message that took two minutes to write is distinguishable from a message that took no time, and the recipient can tell instantly which one they are holding.

So the bar is low and almost nobody clears it. Three sentences of your own words beats every automated congratulation they will get that week.

What to write instead

Name the move specifically. Not "congrats on the new role." Say where they went and what the job is, so it is obvious you read something rather than reacting to a notification. "Head of product at Vantage" costs you four extra words and changes the whole message.

Say the one thing only you would say. This is the sentence that makes it yours. It usually comes from having watched them work: something they were good at that the new job needs, a view they held that turned out right, a conversation you remember. "You spent our whole project arguing the onboarding was the product, so this seems like the right seat" is a real message. "Well deserved" is not.

Ask for nothing. No catch-up soon, no would love to hear more, no let me know if you need anything. Those feel warm and they are actually the beginning of a negotiation, which turns a gift into a transaction. Send the good wishes alone. The relationship is the point.

Three lines. If you have their email, use it: a LinkedIn message arrives in a stack of a hundred that week, an email arrives by itself. The exception is someone you have only ever known through LinkedIn, where an email out of nowhere is odder than the note you are trying to send.

The second message is the one that matters

Here is the part almost nobody does, and it is where the value is.

Write again about three months later.

In the first weeks, someone starting a job is drowning. They are being welcomed, onboarded, and asked for things by everyone they have ever met. They do not know what they need yet, because they have not been there long enough to find out.

By month three they do. They have met the team, found what is broken, and worked out which of it they can fix. That is the moment they are hiring, buying, looking for a person who has solved this before, and it is the moment the welcome flood has entirely stopped. Their inbox has gone quiet again.

A short message then, with no agenda beyond asking how it is actually going, is worth more than the congratulations was. It is also when you become useful, because now you can answer the question they have.

Put the reminder somewhere you will see it. Three months is exactly long enough to forget.

When not to send one

Not every move is a promotion, and treating a departure as a triumph is worse than silence.

If the move looks lateral, or the title is smaller, or the announcement is carefully worded, write the note without the celebration. "Saw you have landed at Vantage, hope the new place is good to you" carries no assumption and cannot be wrong.

If someone was laid off, that is a different message entirely and it is not this one. It should say you are available and mean it, and it should be specific about what you could actually do, because "let me know if I can help" is what everyone says and nobody acts on.

Doing this across a few hundred people

The advice above is easy. Noticing is the hard part.

People change jobs quietly. There is no notification unless you happen to be looking at the right feed on the right day, and by the time you notice, the moment has usually passed. That is the actual reason these messages do not get sent, and it is not a discipline problem.

A personal CRM helps only if it can see the change. The practical version is to re-import your LinkedIn connections every month or so and compare the result against the last one, which is tedious by hand and trivial for software.

NetworkOS does that comparison. When you refresh your LinkedIn connections, it diffs them against your previous import, tells you who moved, ranks them by how close the relationship actually is, and drafts a congratulations for the ones worth writing to. It also keeps the role history on the contact, so you can see where someone has been. Two honest limits: it only notices when you re-import, so it is not watching in the background, and it is Google-only today.

The wider system this sits inside is covered in managing a professional network, and if the person has already been quiet for a year, reconnecting after a long silence is the more useful guide.

The short version

A job change is the easiest reconnect you will ever get, because the news is the reason and nobody finds it strange. Skip the one-click congratulations, which arrives with two hundred identical ones. Name the move specifically, say the one thing only you would say, and ask for nothing. Then write again at three months, when the welcome flood has stopped and they finally know what they need. The hard part is not the writing, it is noticing that someone moved at all.

Common questions

What should you say when someone gets a new job?: Three lines and no ask. Name the move specifically, so it is obvious you read more than a notification. Say the one thing only you could say, which usually means recalling something about how they work or a conversation you had. Then stop. The temptation is to add that you would love to catch up soon, and it weakens the message, because it turns a gift into the opening of a negotiation. Send the good wishes on their own and let them land.
Is it better to message on LinkedIn or send an email?: Email, if you have the address, because that is where the message survives. A LinkedIn congratulation lands in a stack of a hundred identical ones during the week someone starts a job, and it is read in a feed rather than an inbox. An email arrives alone. The exception is a contact you have only ever known through LinkedIn, where an email out of nowhere is stranger than the message you are trying to send.
How long after someone starts a new job should you reach out?: The congratulations belongs in the first two or three weeks, while it is still news. After a month it reads as if you found out late, which is fine but carries less warmth. The more valuable message is the second one, about three months in. By then the welcome flood has stopped, they have worked out what the job actually requires, and they know what they are missing. Almost nobody writes at that point, which is exactly why it works.
Should you ask for something when congratulating someone on a new role?: Not in the first message. Someone starting a job is being asked for things by everyone, and adding to that pile makes you one of the crowd on the day you had a chance not to be. If you genuinely need something, be direct and separate about it rather than wrapping it in congratulations, because the wrapping is transparent and it costs more than the ask would have. Save any request for the follow-up, and only if it fits what they now do.

Sources

Susan McPherson, The Lost Art of Connecting (2021), reporting Mark Granovetter's 1973 finding on how professionals find jobs
Bob Burg, Endless Referrals (4th ed.), on the discipline of the personal note