When You Should Follow Up After Submitting an Application - CareerAlley

When You Should Follow Up After Submitting an Application - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it. Henry David Thoreau Author Byline: Jessica has a true passion for the job seeker, evidenced by her desire to share everything she can with everyone she can about resume writing and interviewing. Author Website: http://www.greatresumesfast.com Wondering whether you should follow up after youve submitted an application for employment? In very rare circumstances youll have the HR managers e-mail address or contact information (most likely you wont if youve applied online in some form or fashion). But if you do have the employers contact info, when should you contact them after submitting an applicationif at all? I will caution you of two things. First, Im writing this based on ten years of experience as a recruiter and HR managerthe person on the other side of the desk. And second, youre probably not going to like my advice. SHOULD I FOLLOW UP? Save your time! Whats that, you say?! Dont follow up after submitting an application?! If youre one of those job seekers who calls people incessantly, hounding them about the status of your application, youre exasperating the hiring manager and killing his or her time. Doing either of these is not an ideal way to position yourself as a top candidate for the opening. Let me explain: An employer will likely receive hundreds of applications for each opening. If each one of those people called, e-mailed, or otherwise contacted that hiring manager, the person in charge of hiring would have no time left to actually FIND the qualified candidate. In actuality, shed spend all her time taking calls and answering e-mails from interested applicants. Im sure you can imagine how much time it would require to follow up with every single applicant. The hiring managers role is to fill the opening with the most qualified person for the position. If your resume demonstrates that you are qualified, you wont have to follow up with the employerthey will contact you. THEN WHAT SHOULD I DO? Utilize your job search time in more meaningful and effective ways. Employ alternate methods to get the most from your job search applications. Instead of following up on every application, use your time to track your job search applications as opposed to your resume response rate. Tracking these figures will give you an overall picture of how many applications youre submitting versus how many call-backs you are receiving. And this information is priceless. It can tell you two things: first, it will tell you if your resume is effective in securing call-backs (critical informationbecause if your resume is off, your job search is going to be long and exhausting); and second, whether you are applying for the right types of positions for your experience and qualifications. One last piece of advice: only invest your time in following up after an actual interview. Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities. Good luck in your search.Visit me on Facebook