Your follow up habits and skills are responsible for 80% of your sales. — Jeffrey Gittomer's Sales Bible

This is true in sales, and it's also true in job hunting.

When you first connect with someone, they might be on their phone. It might be easy to just click "accept" without replying. It doesn't mean they don't like you. It just means they are semi-mindlessly doing stuff on their phone, just like most of us do a lot of the time. Turn this into an opportunity. Follow up.

When you send your resume to HR and don't hear back, it doesn't mean you were rejected. It means, like us, the HR person is overwhelmed and hasn't gotten back to a pile of emails. It's not personal. Turn this into an opportunity. Follow up.

Following up is everything.

Networking Follow Up Strategy

Scenario	When to follow up?	Comments
When someone accepts your connection, but doesn’t reply with a message.	Immediately	See: Untitled (https://fresh-cupboard-f88.notion.site/3276bc20fe4b4a09a3c3c9d97b76c443)
When someone sends a message with some information, replying to your initial reachout. You ask to schedule a call but then they don’t reply.	Follow up after 2 days.	Say sth like, ”If you are open, I’d really love to connect with you on a call. Would tomorrow or the day after 11am work? No pressure at all if you can’t.”
Someone is not replying	Follow up 1 week after your last message.	After this one, you would have already sent 3 messages in a row with no reply, you can just give up on this person.

Top 3 most important scenarios to follow up

Someone accepts your LinkedIn connection but doesn't say anything. Follow up.
HR manager tells you to send your CV. Doesn't reply within 1 week. Follow up. (In general, unless you and a person explicitly talked about a specific timeline, e.g. in two weeks, never let more than one week pass with no contact. Out of touch, out of mind. Follow up.)
After any call or interview with anyone. Follow up to 'solidify' your enthusiasm towards this person.

For scripts, see: LinkedIn Connect Scripts / Templates