LinkedIn Connection Request Prompt
Three connection requests under 300 characters, each with one specific reference, plus a recommendation on whether to send a note at all. The connection note is a 300-character field and roughly 100 sends a week is your entire budget, so each one has to earn its slot. This prompt writes three variants at different levels of directness, tells you which to send, and — when the evidence is thin — tells you to send no note, which outperforms a generic one.
You are writing LinkedIn connection requests. You treat the 300-character note field as the hard constraint it is, and you know that a bad note performs worse than no note at all.
## Objective
{{OBJECTIVE}}
## Who I am
{{ROLE}} at {{COMPANY}}. Tone: {{TONE}}
## Who I am writing to
{{PROSPECT_NAME}}, {{PROSPECT_ROLE}} at {{PROSPECT_COMPANY}}
What I know about them, verbatim:
{{PROSPECT_PROFILE}}
## What I would eventually want
{{OFFER}}
## Hard rules
- The note field holds 300 characters including spaces. Anything longer is truncated by LinkedIn, and a truncated note is worse than none. Count the characters and print the count.
- Exactly one specific reference per note: something from their profile or activity that could not be true of anyone else. Two references reads as research rather than interest.
- No pitch, no meeting request, no link, no calendar. The note buys a connection, not a call.
- Do not open with "I came across your profile", "I hope this finds you well", "quick question", "I'd love to connect" or any sentence that would be identical for a different person.
- Do not compliment. "Impressive career" is filler and reads as automated.
- If I have given you nothing specific enough to reference, say so and recommend sending the request with no note. Do not manufacture a reference.
## Method
1. Find the one thing in the material that is genuinely specific.
2. Decide whether it supports a note at all. Grade the evidence: strong (they said it themselves, recently), weak (inferable from their role), none.
3. Write three variants:
- Direct: names why I am reaching out.
- Curious: asks about the specific thing, with no reason given.
- Peer: positions us as two people with the same problem, no ask.
4. Recommend one, with the reason in one sentence.
5. Write the message to send AFTER they accept, which is where the actual conversation starts. Same rules, up to 600 characters, still no pitch.
## Output format
### Evidence grade
Strong / weak / none, and what it rests on.
### Recommendation
Which variant to send, or "send with no note", and why in one sentence.
### Variant A — direct
The note, then (n characters).
### Variant B — curious
The note, then (n characters).
### Variant C — peer
The note, then (n characters).
### After they accept
The follow-up message, under 600 characters, with the character count.
### What I would need to do better
The one piece of information that would have produced a stronger note.- You have a researched prospect and a connection request to send.
- Your acceptance rate is below about 30% and you suspect the note.
- You are writing the note a template will fill for a batch of similar prospects.
- You are reaching out to someone senior where a pitch would end it immediately.
- Paste real profile text into {{PROSPECT_PROFILE}}. The evidence grade is only as good as what you give it.
- Trust a "none" grade. A no-note request to a well-targeted person beats a generic note, and it does not burn the specific angle you might use later.
- Check the character count yourself on the one you send — models miscount, and LinkedIn truncates without warning.
- Keep the "after they accept" message. Most people win the connection and then send nothing for a week, which wastes it.
The output schema it demands
The single highest-leverage part of any prompt. Without a declared shape you get prose you then have to reformat; with one, you get sections you can act on — and you can tell at a glance when the model skipped something.
### Evidence grade ### Recommendation ### Variant A — direct (+ char count) ### Variant B — curious (+ char count) ### Variant C — peer (+ char count) ### After they accept ### What I would need to do better
What it looks like filled in
Illustrative, not a promise — this is the shape of a good answer rather than a guarantee of one. The scenario is the same fictional company used across the whole toolkit.
Prospect: Dana Whitfield, Group FD at Northbeam Logistics. Evidence: her post last week on a five-week close after an acquisition. Sender: founder at Cadence, tone = plain and short.
Recommendation — Variant B. The evidence is strong and she raised the topic publicly, so a question about it is welcome; a direct "this is what we do" converts her own post into a sales trigger, which is the fastest way to be ignored.
Variant B — curious — "Dana — your post about the five-week close after the acquisition stuck with me. Was it the inter-entity reconciliation that added the time, or the consolidation itself? I keep seeing the first blamed on the second." (218 characters)
Do not do these
Each one is a real failure mode, not a disclaimer.
- Putting the pitch in the note. The note is read in a list view next to fifteen others; a pitch there is a decline.
- Sending the same note to a batch by find-and-replacing the name. That is the pattern LinkedIn’s own acceptance-rate throttle is built to punish.
- Ignoring the 300-character limit because the draft "is nearly there". Truncation cuts mid-sentence.
Attach these once and stop retyping your business
This prompt works pasted into a blank chat. It works considerably better inside a Project with these attached, because then the ICP, the product and the limits are already in context and every answer inherits them.
This is one step in a sequence
The output of the step before is the input to this one, and this one's output is the next one's input. That is the whole reason these are not independent pages.
Before you run it
How many characters does a LinkedIn connection note allow?
300, including spaces, for everyone. It is not raised by Premium or Sales Navigator. LinkedIn also limits how many notes a free account can send per month, which is a separate ceiling from the weekly invitation limit.
Is a note better than no note?
A specific note is better. A generic note is worse than nothing, because it converts an ambiguous request into a clearly automated one. That is why this prompt will recommend sending without a note rather than inventing a reference.
Can I automate this at volume?
You can generate at volume; you cannot send at volume. The weekly ceiling is roughly 100 invitations across the whole account and LinkedIn tightens it for accounts with low acceptance rates, so generation capacity was never the bottleneck.
The reference behind this prompt
Why each note matters: the ceiling is per account, applies on every plan, and is reduced for accounts whose invitations go unaccepted.
Premium does not raise the invitation ceiling. If you are upgrading to send more connection requests, it is the wrong purchase.
Written to a fixed structure and run through Claude and ChatGPT to confirm each one returns the output format it declares. That is not the same as a measured reply-rate benchmark, and nothing here claims one — if you run these at volume and have numbers, we want them.
Take the whole folder instead
This prompt, the files it expects and the rest of the sequence, as a zip you can drop into a Claude Project, a Cursor workspace or an agent repo. Free, no account.