How to Follow Up in your Search
By Elijah Thomas
During these trying times in the employment market, it’s critical that you separate yourself from other job seekers.
One such way is to highlight your interest in a particular job by following up with a hiring manager, especially if you’ve had an interview.
Understand the hiring landscape
Before building your follow-up plan, it’s important that you understand the current hiring landscape. Check out these 2020 study statistics from Yello, a talent acquisition company.
- Average time to hire across all industries is three to four weeks.
- 56% of companies have a dedicated person on their recruiting team who is responsible for scheduling interviews.
- Recruiters’ No. 1 interview scheduling challenge is finding a time that works for everyone.
- 60% of recruiters say that they regularly lose candidates before they’re able to schedule an interview.
Keep these statistics in mind when entering into a job search.
How to Build a Follow-Up Plan
There are three main things to remember when following up: Be professional, persistent and patient. Finding the balance between these three approaches will make you a candidate to consider for any job opening.
Read on for more tips on how to follow up with hiring managers and interviewers the right way.
Be Professional
When building a follow-up plan for a job of interest, it’s important that you maintain an organized, professional approach.
Consider putting in place a system for tracking when and who you should be following up with from any jobs you’ve applied for or job interviews you’ve had. Here are some of the most important things to track when organizing and executing your follow-up approach:
- The name of your hiring manager or interviewer.
- Specific contact information, including phone number and email address.
- Notes from the interview, including any follow-up instructions given to you.
- Specific stories or experiences from your interview that make you a qualified candidate for the role.
Be Persistent
After distributing your resume and participating in an interview, it is perfectly acceptable and recommended that you follow up with a phone call to your prospective employer.
When you get in touch with your target person, politely yet persistently express that you are checking on the status of your candidacy and that you are still very interested in the open position.
If you haven’t received an interview request yet, your first conversation is a great place to convince them to bring you in for a chat. Be persistent with a weekly phone call to check in on the possibility of getting an interview.
Be Patient
One of the best characteristics you can have during your follow-up process is patience. Remember that companies have hiring processes in place — and those processes may take time to fully complete.
Hiring managers may have a timeframe in mind for how long they plan on searching for their next hire. They may also build this into the actual job announcement, keeping them tied to that time period for accepting new resumes.
Try to research how long your potential job is open to new candidates and be patient in knowing the company will likely go through the entire process.
No matter what you do, never give up. If someone has given you permission to follow up, you owe it to your future professional self to keep in touch in a professional, persistent and patient manner.
