Follow Up Without Being a Pest

Follow Up Without Being a PestFollow Up Without Being a PestWhat is the appropriate amount of time to wait to follow up on a job application? Guidelines on when and how to follow up without appearing to be a stalker. Youve sent in your resume. You already know that a follow-up message is a critical step in your job search. Now is the time to ponder the medium of your message.Whats preferred? E-mail? Or is snail mail more gracious? If so, is it wise to send pretty cards? What about FedExing the follow-up correspondence so youll know for koranvers that somebody in the company will open it? After all, people dont ignore a FedEx parcel, right?Beyond that, what does the applicant tracking system (ATS) software do with a follow-up? Are they attached to your record? Is snail mail ignored?We asked recruiting and hiring professionals for their advice on the fruchtwein efficient and acceptable ways to follow up and to get your follow-up noticed as well as which ways are the most inappropriate and creepy.Whats Cool?The pros agree that one e-mail or one phone call (not multiple, they said emphatically) is an acceptable way to follow up. Terri A. Deems, a career coach, trainer and the co-author of Make Job Loss Work for You, said there are two goals for the follow-upTo get your name across to the decision maker again, so theyll be looking specifically at, or for, your resume/applicationTo gather information for yourself about the status of your applicationDeems top choice for follow-up is a phone call placed two to three days after the employer is likely to have received your application materials. She recommends calling early in the morning, between 6 and 815 a.m.Prepare for the call so that you have two or three meaty questions, Deems said - questions that someone in HR wont be able to answer but that a decision maker can. Her suggestions includeCan you tell me about what outcomes you most want to see before the end of the year ? or, What are their top priorities or go als?What kind of experience would your ideal candidate have?What would be happening by the end of the year to tell you that you definitely hired the right person?What would be the biggest challenges I would face in this position? (One benefit to this type of question, Deems said, is that its framed as if youre already in the position and can thus help the decision maker visualize you in that position.)To open the call, Deems suggests using a friendly, casual tone. Heres an exampleHi, Jerry, my name is Terri Deems, and I recently submitted my resume for your xyz opening. Im calling to make sure you received this, and if youve got just a minute or two I had a couple of questions for youE-MailE-mail works as well, but it runs the risk of winding up in a junk folder. If you do choose to e-mail, make sure your subject line is specific enough to garner some attention, Deems said.She recommends job seekers used the saatkorn tone in an e-mail as they would in a phone call. Dont sound stuffy and stiff, and make sure there are no errors in your writing, she said. Keep the e-mail brief and friendly, and include your questions (three, tops). You could even send them a link to (examples of your work available online) or to your Web site, if you have one. Or even send them a link to an article you think they might be interested in (e.g., something about their industry, or relevant to the position, or relevant to a particular goal or challenge theyre facing).Whether you follow up via e-mail or phone call, Deems said to be sure to ask, ?When would be a good time for us to meet to talk further? In other words, invite yourself in for an interview.Snail MailWe know, we know Many HR professionals have a positive view of receiving a nice, handwritten card. It certainly makes a job candidate stand out, they say.But then there are the many hiring managers who curse the analog missive. Snail mail just takes too long and ends up cluttering up someones desk - annoying Deems said.Megan Blacksher is a senior HR consultant at CareerSparx, a 12-week online course designed to teach recent college graduates how to jump-start their careers. She is not a groupie of hard copies because they just create more work for me and my team. The primary problem is that they cant be forwarded or easily converted to the electronic record, making it hard to track your correspondence with the company. That difficulty introduces a hurdle to passing your correspondence on if a hiring manager thinks you might be a good fit for another position. If I have your information in an electronic format, I can easily forward it to the appropriate person with one click, she said. If its a combination of online and paper, its more difficult to keep everything together and your file updated if its all paper, even more so. (Scanning your materials in order to turn them into PDFs isnt fun for anyone.)Blacksher recommends that, instead of snail mail, you send an e-mail reiterating your interest and sta ting when, exactly, you sent your resume and for what position.FedEx and Other Creepy OutreachYes, its sure to get noticed. But is that a good thing? A growing number of professionals we talk to view a FedEx package as over the top.Other creepy means of following up, courtesy of Adam Kruse, a hiring manager at The Hermann London Group, a real estate brokerage in St. Louis, and Shawn Graham, a career expert blogger for Fast Company magazineFacebook friend requestBirthday cardFlowers or giftsMultiple phone callsMore than one unsolicited e-mailLinkedIn requests to hiring managers you dont knowHand-delivering materialsWhat the Tracking Software Thinks of Follow-Up MediaWhether or not the ATS tracks and records your follow-up contact can depend on whether a candidate has followed directions, said Jacob J. Gabrie, CEO of Town Center Realty Group, Inc., who uses a proprietary ATS to track candidates at Town Center and a subsidiary company. At Town Center, if the instructions are clear and the applicant contacts the company in an undirected manner, theyre eliminated from consideration, he said.Have a Follow-Up StrategyElene Cafasso, an executive and personal coach at Enerpace, Inc., uses her marketing background to help her clients craft a contact strategy that encompasses all phases of job search communication.Such a strategy includes frequency and methods of follow-up and what messaging should be used in each. For example, after submitting a resume, she counsels her clients to wait a week and then call. If they receive no reply to that call, they can follow up again by phone or e-mail three days later. And then thats it no more calls, she said.Having a schedule like this eliminates the angst over each application and every non-reply, Cafasso said. It normalizes the fact that multiple follow-ups are to be expected, so my clients dont take offense and start making up reasons why they havent heard anything. Ive had a client apply in September and not hear anything unti l JanuaryA contact strategy also helps you gain control over the process. They are doing what they CAN do, and, more importantly, they can decide when to stop the follow-up, she said. Its very powerful to send that final message that says something like, ?I know how busy you are and do not want to pester you. Since Ive not yet heard back from you with a status on my application, I will assume that you have filled the position. I would welcome an opportunity with xyz company should a similar position become available. Correction Megan Blacksher is a senior HR consultant at CareerSparx. An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified her as a career counselor. Blacksher made several statements that were incorrectly attributed to Connie Sung, a career counselor and instructor at CareerSparx, in an earlier version of this article.